Early Rising, Day Planning

I woke up and got out of bed this morning a little past three...did ten minutes of running in place while brewing coffee.  Now I'm sitting here looking ahead to the coming day, just a little past four.  One item on my agenda is to go down to my local public library branch, update my card and account, and check out one or two interesting books.  Unlike the case with 2nd and Charles a few weeks ago, I have no intention of picking out books out of desperation because I'm too tired and can't find a place to sit.  i do know that this is now post-Easter and we're now back on the regular calendar. It's a foregone conclusion that further exercise for me today will tax my ability to accomplish it.  If i do more back-yard inner perimeter laps, then I know what to expect.  And my eating will be measured and recorded., with the notion that spacing of meals and snacks is to be recommended. Yesterday evening i did watch a YouTube video listing and explaining 7 simple habits I could easily adopt...probably would be better off writing them down and implementing them, 1 by 1.  i want to install and begin using a smartphone app that identifies wild bird species by their songs...this afternoon on the back porch sounds like a good time to get that going.  And hydrating a lot more, that sounds good. Life is good, and I am a person in charge of my own happiness...

Just Finished Reading Shadow Magic by Joshua Khan

 During Anita and Jim's recent visit to Gaineville, we tried looking around the used bookstore 2nd and Charles.   There was such a dearth of interesting books or magazines...and I was feeling physically exhausted...that I almost jumped at the opportunity to buy a 2016 juvenile-level fantasy novel by Joshua Khan titled Shadow Magic. It took me a while to get going reading through it, especially when I quickly discerned how depressing and hopeless the setting, characters and social order were.  Imagine that the "good" place, called Gehenna, is where the dead are brought back to life.  Society is worse than the Taliban and women can be put to death for simply invoking magic. Lilith Shadow rules over Gehenna although she is suffering through a 3-year engagement to an entitled little creep of the opposite ruling house named Gabriel and trying to solve the mystery of recent assassinations and attempts.  The novel's hero is a rough little boy named Thorn...he and Lily hook up and are pretty much on their own to solve the mysteries and save the day. In the background is a scary (but principled) man named Tyburn: he is the official executioner, and no one wants to find themselves on his bad side.  Let me explain my reactions.  I found nothing in the story's setting attractive or stimulating to my imagination, which was the case in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Twilight by Stephenie  Meyer, and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling...J.R.R.Tolkien's two sagas The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings also stand out.  Rick Riordan wrote the Percy Jackson series bringing classical mythology to a modern-day level, and until filmmakers ruined it for me by over-dramatizing it, I enjoyed the occcaional tongue-in-cheek repartee. But not with Shadow Magic. On the book's jacket he is quoted as saying,"I defy you not to love this story." 

Well, I stand defied. 

I had little trouble reading through Joshua Khan's narrative, but found it all pretty boring...it didn't matter to me what happened to anyone, including the so-called "good guys", who I would no doubt have disliked in real life.  So I don't recommend Shadow Magic and only bought and read it just to be able to say I read a book.  i won't buy or read the next one. No, I think I'll just bide my time and choose something else with a special, appealing nature to it...

Another Pleasant, Hopeful Early Morning at the "Base"

 Well, it's 6:36 am and I got myself up and out of bed, making some coffee and doing a little living room rug exercising.  It's not too cold outside, but the temps will rise later on.  For me, this is my base time and location.  Last night I already resumed taking the enhanced TMZ to fight off that tenacious gbm, and I already am at peace with extending my nighttime/morning fast without requesting donut shop stops.  I read the first 8 pages in Khan's Shadow fantasy book.  It's easy reading although the setting is brutal  and something I have difficulty  wrapping my propensity for imagination around all the negativity.  My internet research on the author and this series revealed that he hadn't grown much...if any...in stature over the past nine years.  I'll read some more today and mark the pages read.  Let me just keep Peewee from licking me today...she's such a  sweetie and I don't want her hurt!  I'm tired of watching those right-wing tv channels with their scare tactics, even if I tend to agree with their general political/social worldviews. I think I'll try out some of the foreign language stuff on that radio/[podcast channel.  Tomorrow morning another Parkrun is scheduled, and maybe Melissa and I will be ready to go for it, rain or not: just show up!. Yesterday Anita, Jim and I walked around 2nd and Charles, which is a thoroughly inadequate, disorganized used book store with few sitting opportunities and even fewer reading choices.  Maybe today we'll try out Book-a-Million or Barnes & Noble.  I've done ipf six minutes so far, and plan to go back to the bedroom in a few minutes after I try out some more. I'm still looking forward to trying out sitting on the front porch holding my Shaum's math book...

Coffee Mug Great Books List

A few weeks ago I got a special coffee mug at a local used bookstore.  It depicts several famous books, most of which I have already read...and reviewed on this blog.  There are a few that I've yet to read.  I thought it might be cool to list them all below in the order, from right to left, that they appear on my mug, then place a link on each title to my past blog article about it.  So, here goes...

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger...read in 1972

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka...read only the short story Metamorphosis

Brave New World by Aldeus Huxley

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer...not yet

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath...currently reading

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett...not yet

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

On the Road Jack Kerouac

Ulysses by James Joyce

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Little Women by Louise May Alcott

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll...from childhood

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez...not yet

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Lord of the Flies by William Golding 

Quote of the Week...from Gardner Dozois

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston.  And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.

                                                                  ---Gardner Dozois

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018) is probably best-known for his anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction...which I'm currently reading and reviewing (I'm up to the year 1989), as well as being the editor of the acclaimed Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.  He's also written science fiction in both novel and short story form, but his fame has been as the role of a collector and editor of quality stories written by others.  His above quote places him a decade ahead me, but I couldn't tell you very much about bookstores even during the sixties, other than the book and supply store at my public school.  Then again, I tended to go more for libraries in my early youth, and liked those old children's series they sold at my nearby G.C. Murphy like Power Boys and Bobbsey Twins (I read all my sister's Trixie Beldon and Donna Parker books, too).  But sure, once bookstores, both new and used, began sprouting in full force during the seventies, I caught the bug and began buying paperbacks, mostly nonfiction. I picked the above quote because nowadays bookstores sadly seem to be in a state of retreat, both new and used. And for those that are still around, it's funny that now the science fiction section is often the biggest one.  I'm not bemoaning the advancement of digitalized books like Kindle or audiobooks, mind you...I make liberal use of both forms. But I also know that for some reason book publishing...unlike with music or movies/TV...lags far behind in the availability of bygone and out-of-print works for digital reading, while much is unavailable in libraries as well.  Which means you go to a used bookstore to find them...assuming there are any used bookstores.  Gainesville's number has steeply declined in recent years, but we still have a couple of them, along with a crazy used book sale that happens every (pandemic-free) year in April and October.  I'd say take a train to Jacksonville, but you can't do that from Gainesville anymore, either...

Gainesville Bookstores of the Past

I'm sitting here reminiscing on Gainesville bookstores from years gone by...there have been a lot of them and some were outstanding.  Funny, though, although with audio media, phonograph records went through a number of digitilizations, first with compact discs and then to MP3 and now streaming, printed material is taking a while being synchronized with our computer era.  Sure, Kindle is prospering and it's easy getting books on it...that is, if they are still in print.  Unfortunately, most of the ones out of print are unavailable in the digital era and you have to get the hard copy to read them.  Amazon has largely supplanted local used bookstores as a source of these old books, but as one who likes to browse shelves and pick up books and leaf through them, it falls short in that respect. In Gainesville, we still have some bookstores, but I remember times when there were some awfully good ones, like...

Book Gallery---This store, the "original" Book Gallery until it spun off into Book Gallery West on NW 16th Blvd (that one still stands), was in the Publix shopping center on N. Main St. between 10th and 16th Avenues.  In the late 80's we'd go there as our number one source of used books...the used book collection was vast.

Goering's---Situated on the NW corner of University Avenue and 13th Street, it was loaded with all sorts of books and magazines, one of my favorite browsing spots.  Before the building was torn down for construction, they had opened a second store further west on University past 34th Street but both closed down.

Gainesville Book Company---Located in the industrial park on NW 97th Blvd off 39th Avenue, this small shop was loaded with ultra-cheap used books...I especially liked the science fiction collection and bought many of the Stephen King books I would read through this period during the 2000's decade.  They were open every other weekend.

Borders---A huge store with new books now occupied by the equally-excellent DSW shoe store on Newberry Road near I-75, I loved browsing through it and found some excellent puzzle books...and got hooked on the Magicians series by Lev Grossman.  They also had a great CD and DVD collection as well as a big coffee shop/sitting area.

Media Play---Across from K-Mart off Newberry Road just west of the Interstate, this store...like Borders...featured books, CDs and DVDs.

Barnes and Nobles---On Archer Road right near the also-now-defunct Atlanta Bread Company...where I used to hang out for their excellent coffee and sitting area, I spent a good amount of time here.  B&N has their own "Kindle", which they call "Nook".  My take on the two is that until out-of-print books are available on them, then they are going to continue to be secondary to hard copy books.

The Florida Bookstore---Right across from the University of Florida campus on University Avenue, it was a primary supplier of textbooks, class material and school supplies.  Of course, other companies have sprung up in the area to replace it, but I wish this one was still there.  Once it briefly had a second outlet on SW 34th Street, but now there's a Sherwin Williams paint store at that spot.

The "First" Books-a-Million---Replacing the Skeeters restaurant on NW 13th Street, Books-a-Million was my primary stopping place before my graveyard shift job in the 1990s...I'd always get the flavored coffee of the day and then browse around.  I read the first four Harry Potter books sitting in there, a few pages at the time, as well as some others.  It's been replaced by the used bookstore 2nd and Charles and still has an outlet on Newberry Road near the Oaks mall.

Walden and B.Dalton at the Oaks Mall...I usually didn't go to these unless I happened to be walking through the mall on other business, but they were always fun to stop at and browse.

Archer Square bookstore...I don't remember this business's name, but it was in the Archer Square shopping center on Archer Road just west of 34th Street that featured a Winn-Dixie and Tony and Pat's Pizza, along with a kiddie's place called Fun Factory.  It was in the 1980s and I would walk across the field from my nearby apartment and browse around...it was here that I bought my first Isaac Asimov sci-fi anthology paperbacks.

Westgate Plaza used bookstore...I don't remember this one's name either, but they had a great selection of books...I bought Frank Herbert's entire Dune series here.  Now the whole plaza, along SW 34th Street just south of University Avenue, has been demolished and is being rebuilt, but the bookstore left a while ago.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but it's kind of sad to see these fine establishments come and go...they deserved better...

   

Just Finished Reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians Series (for 3rd Time)

Earlier this century Gainesville was fortunate to have a great bookstore: Borders, on Newberry Road just west of the Oaks Mall...sadly it closed although DSW, a large shoe store which replaced it, is pretty good in its own right...but I digress.  One day I was browsing the store and came across a slick-looking paperback novel, The Magicians by Lev Grossman.  At the time J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series was nearing the end of its fantastic run and I was into this genre of fantasy literature.  I read that first book of three in the series and became an instant fan. The protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, is a young man just graduated from high school and applying to different colleges.  Socially inept and awkward, he is an academic genius and is looking forward to the more competitive world of college.  Quentin is also prone to fantasy and daydreaming, and has never gotten over his childhood fantasy series Fillory, still going back to the old books to reread.  Julia, whom Quentin has futilely adored for years, accompanies him with her boyfriend Steve for a college interview. When they discover the interviewer is dead the journey for Quentin through the rabbit hole of magic begins...as it also does for Julia in her own way. The novel...and ultimately the series...deals with the lives and struggles of Quentin and Julia, the former within the "official" academic setting of Brakebills Academy for training as a magician and the latter on the craft's outskirts, going from one secret place to another where skills are developed and contacts made.  Along with this are the other people in their lives as well as the magical land of Fillory, which turns out to be very real, no fantasy at all.  I've looked back on the series...now having just finished reading it for a third time...and have concluded that not only were the story line and characters well developed and compelling, but I dug Grossman's general writing style as well.  There is a lot of humor in this trilogy, and much of what happens to the characters is reflected in their personal growth over time.  I contrast this with what I've seen in the first two episodes of the SyFy Channel's television adaptation of The Magicians: wildly divergent story lines and characters' personalities, and with virtually no humor at all to be seen anywhere...very disappointing!  On TV, the bigshots all seem to think of Quentin as "The One" like Harry Potter or Neo in The Matrix, around whom the success or failure of everything rides...the books were nothing like this.  Also, I got tired in a hurry of Quentin being portrayed as mentally ill instead of simply being very unhappy with his life and the world. Apparently, though, a lot of viewers have taken to the television series, but I suspect few of them have ever bothered to pick up the books.  If they had, I believe their conclusions about it all might be vastly different...