Wednesday, June 13, 2012

becbooks

I have an Excel file that I use all the time.  It is titled becbooks. (I am Rebecca and these are my books.)  It has my most important information and I would be devastated if I lost it.

That being said I only back it up when I think about losing it,  maybe once a year.  It is the list of books that I have read.

I read about a book a day.  This depends on the size of the book and how much I get done in my REAL life.  I read about 300 pages.  I don't speed read, but I am a fast reader.  If I was reading technical journals I would not read this fast.  I would also not retain very much information.

I don't join book clubs, because by the time they have the next meeting I will have read another 20 or 30 books and I will have forgotten which character was in what book and maybe mix up the important points.

I prefer paperbacks because I carry a book almost everywhere I go.  I can vacuum with a book.  I do dishes and dust with a book.  I read while my husband drives.  He doesn't talk a lot so this works for us.  If he has something to say, I stop reading and when he runs out of things to say I pull the book back up.  Hardbacks are hard on my wrists when reading in bed and it is hard to keep them out of the bath tub, where I do a LOT of reading.  Plus, if I damage a hardback, it will be much more expensive to replace as I mostly read library books.

When we lived in California, I lived close to about 5 libraries.  At that time, they didn't buy a lot of paperbacks for the library.  They relied on donated copies.  Once I had read all the ones that interested me, I went on to the next library.  When I had exhausted all the libraries close to me I started buying books at a used book store. 

If I brought home a book that I had read before from the library, I just put it back in the pile to be returned.  If I BOUGHT one that I had already read, I was furious.  Lee kept after me to set up an Excel file to keep track of my reading.  I was reluctant because I had been reading since I was 4 and how do you know where to start.  Plus, I was not very good on the computer, except for email and Google. 

He talked me into it.  I just kept a notebook by the bed and wrote down the author and title after I finished a book.  After a while I added the genre and then I started rating the books.  If I HATED a book I wanted to know not to purchase that author again.  If I LOVED a book, I wanted to search for that author.  Sometimes I would give an author another chance for an iffy book, but there are a lot of books and I usually quit them after two not-so-good ones.

If I happened upon a book I had read that wasn't on my list, I added it in, but at this point, the books not on my list are so old or they are classics and I don't need to add them.  So there are maybe 50 books or so on my list that I didn't read in the mid-nineties when I started keeping track.

                                

As of yesterday there were 6447.  I finished one last night and I'm half-way through one today, but they are not added into the file, so they don't count , yet.

I often told young, voracious readers in the library to start keeping a list.  I wish I had done so.  There were always a few older readers that would come in with their tattered notebooks held together with a rubber band and loose pages falling out.  I would try to encourage them to use an Excel file.  It is so handy.  It alphabetizes by author and by title within the author.  I print out a new copy every 100 books or at least when I go to buy books at the used book store.  I LOVE it.

My current scheme is to get on the library website.  I go to Advanced Search and look for paperbacks with 2012 as the publication date.  Then I request all the ones that interest me.  When I don't have enough to keep me busy, I go to the used book store to catch the ones that are older that I missed.  GOTTA have the list for that!

I went to the book store yesterday and brought back all the books I had finished to trade in. I made a pile of the books I wanted and then alphabetized them by author. Then I went through my list and ended up putting back about five books. Good thing I had my list! If someone asks me about an author, I can look them up and tell you which are the best authors and which are their best books.


My idea of rich is to be able to go to a NEW bookstore or Amazon.com or Barnes and Nobel (especially for my NOOK) and just order every book I want.  Then pre-order the ones I want that aren't even printed yet.  I bet Oprah does that.  Or she has people to do that for her.  By the way, I CAN'T read her books.  They are so depressing.  I don't want to read a book and get involved with the characters that have the most horrible things happen to them and then nothing good ever does to make up for that.  I want a good mystery where the bad guy gets caught.  I want a romance where you get the hot guy. I want a biography where someone overcomes great odds and GOOD things happen for them.  For some reason, this is not Oprah's world and so I kind of feel sorry for her.  Maybe I should send her a list of the authors that I LOVE.  She would be so much happier!  Oprah!  Call me.  I've got a LIST!

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