MemberFourpawz2

About My Library

Books, books, books! At Christmastime and birthdays, no one in my family bothers to ask me anything but what titles I want this time around. I'm the easiest person in the family to buy for. Some years I get every single one on the list! To me there is nothing better than the getting of books. The days when the big boxes from Scholastic showed up are just about my only good memories from grade school. Daddy's flashlight always disappeared on those nights. I just couldn't go to sleep with all those unread books in the house.

Most of the books in my library are ones I have collected. A few of them belonged to my parents, (that explains the coffe table books - my father loved coffee table books), grandparents and - in the case of a very few - great grandparents. In general, once I've acquired it, I cannot bear to get rid of a book which would explain a few of the very rotten ones that appear here. One time I did dispose of a book about vampires in S.E. New England in which the author appeared to be so desperate for things to write about that he actually used up a paragraph or so describing the upholstery on the chairs in the library where he was supposed to be doing research.

I love historical fiction and history, but I'm not really picky. I've got a few poetry books, but I must confess that I don't really like poetry much at all. I've got a number of odd little books that people seem to beleive that I must have strictly because they are about cats and I have a cat. (I have a car but I don't want any books about automobiles.) Nevertheless I will probably always keep the cat books. And the poetry books. And the coffe table books.

I don't much care about the condition of a book when I'm in a buying mood - which is almost all of the time - just so long as there isn't any actual blood or barf on or in it. The neatest thing I ever discovered in a book that I bought was the unexpected autograph of the author - one of my favorites - Nigel Tranter. I was very thrilled. The strangest thing I ever found in a book was a cash register receipt belonging to the original purchaser of the book WITH HIS ENTIRE MASTERCARD CREDIT CARD NUMBER printed on it!!! I hope that the bookstore in the Edmonton International Airport has since changed this feature.

I've tried to rate most of my books. The ones that I have not are ones that 1. I haven't read yet or 2. ones that I read so long ago I can't quite recall what it was that I thought about them at the time. Probably some of the ratings are a bit over-generous and I may re-think them at some future point. There are some books tagged Not Mine that are, well, not mine - ones I read at the urging of friends or family but that I don't want to own.

Here is the link for my 2011 75 Book Challenge thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/104720

About Me

Location

Southeastern Massachusetts

Memberships

LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Currently Reading

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-Three Volumes by Edward Gibbon

Nicholas Nickleby (Penguin Popular Classics) (English and Spanish Edition) by Charles Dickens

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone: A Novel (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

A Long Petal of the Sea: A Novel by Isabel Allende

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot) by Agatha Christie

Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell by Tim Miller

Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe

A Rip Through Time: A Novel by Kelley Armstrong

The Joy of Politics: Surviving Cancer, a Campaign, a Pandemic, an Insurrection, and Life's Other Unexpected Curveballs by Amy Klobuchar

The Great Tradition (Pelican S.) by F. R. Leavis

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth by Rachel Maddow

Favorite Authors

Tracy Chevalier, Bernard Cornwell, George Eliot, John R. Erickson, Lynn Flewelling, Diana Gabaldon, Elizabeth Gaskell, Parke Godwin, Barbara Hambly, Thomas Hardy, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Dewey Lambdin, Louise Penny, Nathaniel Philbrick, John Prebble, Judith Merkle Riley, Mari Sandoz, Tom Rob Smith, Josephine Tey, Nigel G. Tranter, Barbara W. Tuchman, James Welch

Local Favorites

Bookstores: Baker Books, Barnes & Noble Booksellers - North Dartmouth, Partners Village Store

Libraries: Mattapoisett Free Public Library, Millicent Public Library, Wilks Library (New Bedford Free Public Library)

Member Connections

Friends

afinch11, alcottacre, Alice2Oz, callmejacx, diogo79, FlossieT, IceCurler, jll1976, ladymacbeth1, ljreader, OliviaBrooks123, sandykaypax, sibylline, Smiler69, sputhoff14, StevenTill, TinaV95, TrishNYC, twp77, veryan, Whisper1

Interesting Library

alibrarian, annbenjamin, antiquary, bookstothesky, carminowe, CWPT, diana.gabaldon, diogo79, EarlyReviewers, ejj1955, elliepotten, john257hopper, Kirconnell, ladymacbeth1, lanaing, literarysarah, Matke, nellista, rainpebble, SecondChances, TeacherDad, tomcatMurr, TrishNYC, wildbill