What do you read?

I don’t know why, but I have never kept books. I could have a very nice library by now. My usual pattern is to pick up a large number of books at either antique stores ( they usually sell books dirt cheap) or my local library. The one near my house seems to be the clearing house for the county library system. When new books come out, they typically buy three or four copy’s for each location, after about a year or so and interest for that book dies down they only usually keep one per location. The rest are sold for $1 for a hardcover and 50 cents for a paperback.
$1 for a book that sold new for over $20, amazing.
Anyways, I would read these books and then donate them back to the library so they can sell them again. I don’t have a single book in the house.
 
I have paperbacks of SF from Anderson to Zelazny and of every Regency Era novel that Georgette Heyer ever wrote on ~50' of shelving
next to the 3 bookcases of mostly oversized hardcovers with photos & descriptions of aircraft, tall ships and architecture in the rec. room.
Also mebbe a dozen cartoon annuals by Giles to remind me that I'm still a Brit at heart.
And a bookcase full of hardback motorcycle reference books next to the computer desk.
But most of my new titles are E-books on my Kindle. Even us old farts gotta move with the times, eh?
 
I alternate between the serious and the fun. Serious might be some aspect of modern European history, ancient history or novels that need some effort, like Umberto Eco's. Fun can be motorsport-related (Next on my list is Adrian Newey's How To Build a Car) music-related like biographies from Chrissie Hynd, Ron Wood etc. or downright silly. If you've never read books by Malcolm Pryce or Jasper Fforde then you've missed out!
Since I moved home a couple of times I cleared out nearly all my books, and there are so many in charity shops I don't feel the need to fill the shelves any more. I just keep the important ones like Tuning For Speed :D
 
xjwmx said:
I read Geronimo's autobiography yesterday. Lots of massacres with Mexicans. Lots of place names to try and find on google maps. Might be of special interest to azman and mailman and other Az residents.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AvYaAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Read several books on Geronimo, his heirs and Apache history before a southwest trip, made visits to the historic places more interesting, meaningful. It's surprising how some of the "wild" ways continued on into the 20th century.

Reading The Hidden Life of Trees, things I never knew, thought about, he goes a bit far but we don't fully understand the ways of the woods.
 
Was into reading a lot of Louis L' Amour books at one time. If you've never read "Education of a Wandering Man", it is Louis himself writing about his younger years when he left school in the 10th grade and began a self education stirred by a passion for books. Great book. Lately I've been reading through "The Yamaha XS 650 Engine" book written by Hans J Pahl. Downloaded from Amazon. Sure you all have previously read that one.... https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-XS650-Engine-Including-Electrical/dp/1544270631
 
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It’s funny I was just going through this thread again, everyone has such individual tastes. I used to work with this guy from Honduras, he was absolutely obsessed with Nazi Germany, it’s all he would read about. He joined some military book club and he would get 3 or 4 books a month, all of them about some German battle or biography’s of officers.
I remember him telling me that the WW2 German Army was the best in the world! I said yeah...right up to the point where we kicked their ass!
 
I hate to read. Here is my entire educational library! Words you can live by??:shootme: and more pictures than words.:thumbsup:
"Just Kiddin"
Books 005.JPG Books 006.JPG
 
In about 1970 I wrote to the "Rip Off Press" and tried to get a hold of R. (Scumb) Crumb. He responded with a short note of thanks and included some sketches. I was the man of the hour since I had indirect contact with "Literary Greatness".:bow::bow2: Gilbert Shelton was outstanding with the "Freak Brothers" and one of my personal favorites "Wonder Warthog". Guys like S. Clay Wilson and Jay Lynch were Way Out There!:yikes: I remember this like it was yesterday; going to the movies to see "Fritz The Cat".:thumbsup:
 
GLJ said:
I somewhat remember going to to see Fritz the Cat. Not sure if it age or the times that the memory is fuzzy.:laugh2:
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Me too, I was in high school. I went with a buddy of mine to the theatre and we managed to get in. It was an Xrated cartoon, for those who might not know. It was rather bizarre.
 
I saw Fritz at the Gay Street Theatre in Knoxville when I was 16, stoned out of my mind on weed. Hitchhiked about 100 mi. to see it. Pretty conservative and staid theatre, might have ordered it by mistake.

Kids today are too inundated to have ... I think there are 50,000 Fritz equivalents you can see online at any point in time. "Do you remember Jake Paul episode #5439? I hitchiked 100 mi. to see it on my friend's computer."
 
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I have read three books since 1984. In 1991 a biography of Coco Chanel because I needed something to do while lounging beside the pool (this is before internet) on weekends, around 1996 the 'Sherlock Holmes' adventures while visiting my in-laws in Victoria BC one Christmas, and in 1999 a biography of J.P Morgan which I never finished. I do read a newspaper daily, and have a subscription to 'Texture' (150 or so weekly and monthly magazines, from Hot Rod and Car and Driver to Time, The New Yorker and tons more, for $10 a month) but I find I only read those magazines when I am bored sitting in airplanes. Not much of a reader then.
 
I'm a voracious non-fiction reader - mainly naval and aviation history and biographies. History is so much more than names, dates and places: it is driven by people and their motivations, prejudices, desires, strengths and weaknesses and I enjoy learning about those aspects of what happened and why it happened.

Right now for example, I am re-reading everything I can find on the Nixon Watergate scandal, investigations and cover-up...for some reason. :rolleyes:

ooops - no politics...my bad. :oops:
 
MaxPete said:
I
- - - Right now for example, I am re-reading everything I can find on the Nixon Watergate scandal, investigations and cover-up...for some reason. :rolleyes:
ooops - no politics...my bad. :oops:
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Hi Pete,
while political discussion ain't good, your obsession with politics is a perversion and discussing that is OK.
Me too with voracious reading but, except for motorcycle-related tech, fiction.
SF, the Hornblower series and Georgette Heyer's Regency novels.
 

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