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Member: jasfaulkner

CollectionsYour library (1,384)

Reviews13 reviews

Tagsmovie (278), DVD (270), cookbook (201), drama (182), fiction (180), comedy (152), essays (69), anthropology (66), fantasy (56), animation (52) — see all tags

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GroupsAll About Art, All the World's a Stage, Art & Books, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Bloggers, Buddhism, Canuckistan, Cartoons, Chocolate!, Comics — show all groups , Cookbookers, Deep South, Drawn!, Evolve!, Food History, Humor, Invisible Library, Lingua Latina, Mixed Media Artists, MyPeopleConnection Book Clubs, Needlearts, Orisha Worship & IFA, PaperBackSwap, Poetry Fool, Science!, Short Stories, Sweet Treats!, Tai Chi, Tea!, Treehuggers, Writer-readers, Yoga, Zen

About meHi! I'm a writer and geek for a number of interesting but ultimately useless pursuits. I live quite happily in a small house with a huge dog, a garden and a lot of books.

About my libraryThis is pretty much a work in progress. When I get time I enter books, add graphics and correct my spelling and grammar mistakes.

One thing that has really hit home in doing this project is this: like a lot of people in my culture, it was a shock to see how much stuff I own. Historically, a lot of people in my part of the world and in similar cultures maintained large personal libraries as symbols of status and learning. Having toured some of those old homes and knowing that I have a large library as well, it makes me wonder what kind of relationship they had with their libraries. Did they read all of their books? Were there volumes they were dying to get and if so, did they enjoy hunting for them? Were there writers whose names gave them a warm familiar feeling because their work had meant so much to them?

Think about it, libraries and bookstores are great places, but we are essentially visitors who will never know every volume: what is in there, how we got it, etc. (and this partially illustrates why the idea of polyandry gives me a headache...) In our own libraries, we might remember the contents of the book and the intentions with which we bought it and what we were experiencing when we read it. Personal libraries are like large, dynamic expressive works. So it does make me wonder if those lovely, impressive rooms full of tomes are functionally analogous to my room full of books.

How do people decide on what goes into a personal library? It's very interesting to see how different libraries here are categorized and what people keep. As for me, I keep what I like and will probably read again. Anything else is read and given away. If there is anything you have a question about, please feel free to ask. I'm no expert on any of the subjects that are represented here, but I'll be happy to tell about the books themselves.

3/5/08 Some notes about my LT since I first wrote my profile essay:

As I wrote earlier, this is something I tend to work on for a while and then come back to as time permits. Since I wrote that, I realized that I needed to weed out a lot of books, movies and music that I would probably never read, watch or listen to again. To me, the stuff can be vital only if it is engaging someone. So I've sent quite a few things to people who had those titles on their wish lists and have started releasing books using Bookcrossing. It's liberating to see more space in my house and it feels good to know someone is happening on a book at the local grocer's or getting a package containing something they want. Sometimes Karma can serve us a huge helping of delight and I'm feeling that right now.

Still, you're welcome to browse through what is logged here and come back to see what I've added or deleted. (There's a lot of both that needs to be done.)

If you don't want to just look at everything, the easiest way would probably be to browse by tags.

Books: I don't have a universal tag that will bring up just my books. I think I've logged all of my cookbooks and a chunk of my books on theatre and anthropology. There are a few other tags that have seen a lot of traffic, but those would be good places to start.

Music: There's a smattering of everything here. You can find it all under the CD tag. This is the point where any illusions that I'm up on things, trendy, hip, whatever will go right out the window. This will become even more apparent as more titles are cataloged here.

Movies: There are a few cassettes of things that I haven't or simply can't replace with DVDs yet. You can find them by searching under the "VHS" tag. Everything else can be found by searching under "DVD" and looking for the genre. My movie collection is pretty odd, too. I'm a sucker for any and every treatment of Shakespeare's works I can get my paws on. I've also developed a taste for Asian costume dramas. No one else around me likes these movies, so I'm free to turn on the subtitles and watch Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat flare their nostrils at each other in Mandarin.

Still, the best movie watching experiences are the ones that are shared and that leads to what I can only call way, way too much Keanu love in the people who usually watch movies with me. Seriously, I know my adopted granny Sylvia and BFF Kevin love me, but I could walk into my living room holding a length of my right arm in my left hand, the stump tied off with a neighbor child's Stretch Armstrong they would shush me and ask me to wait if they thought a scene was coming up where Mister Whoa took off his shirt. At least I don't have to catalog my mother's Lou Diamond Phillips movies because they are safely stashed away next to everything Sandra Bullock and Diane Keaton have made since 1992. Hmm. Sometimes it really comes down to the company instead of the title that's playing.

But I'm rambling... Browse and enjoy. Ask questions. Visit my blog. I'm happy to see you here.

Peace,
Jas

3/13/08 Addenda I have a :Cuecat! This cute little guy is really cutting down on the time it takes to add books to the library. The only drawback is that I haven't added tags or covers to the nearly one hundred books the 'cat has helped me add to this site. That will have to come later. At this point, if you're a first time visitor, you might want to just set your view to covers and browse.

Happy Thursday!
jas

Homepagehttp://jasfaulkner.blogspot.com/

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

LocationNashville, Tennessee

Emailartsgeekgmail.com

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URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/jasfaulkner (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jasfaulkner (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (99), Awards (226), Characters (1986), Places (361)

Member sinceNov 28, 2005