Weekend Assignment #252: Book Connections

Last week, we welcomed our first guest "professor," Florinda, who provided us with assigner Weekend Assignment #251: Fantasy Sabbatical. This week, let's dip into the suggestion list from another guest "professor," Laura of YBTN. Both the main question and the extra credit are hers, as we return to a favorite subject for some of us: books!

Weekend Assignment #252: Where do you get books from?

Extra Credit: What was the last book you read, and why?

Mind you, I'm hoping for something more interesting than five people posting the word "Amazon." Let's consider more than just our #1 current bookseller, shall we? I'll start.

Okay, yes, many of my recent purchases are from Amazon, but not all of them. This morning, for example, I had a half hour delay in starting work, due to the business where I'm working having computer problems. So I dashed over to Borders, and ended up perusing their remaindered merchandise. I picked up a Peanuts calendar (Sunday strips on the left pages, a week of calendar on the right ones) for work for $4, browsed through Christmas ornaments and Hanukkah votives, and ended up with this:

It's sort of a purse-thing, a slipcase with purple ribbon ties and patent leather handles, containing the first two Nancy Drew books. I first read The Secret of the Old Clock and The Hidden Staircase approximately 32 years ago, and I'm curious to see what I'll make of this edition. The illustrations look more 1940s-1950s than 1930 (when it was first published) or 1960s or later. But I'm sure I remember wondering what a "roadster" was. This edition calls Nancy's car a "convertible."

There must be lots of books in my collection from B&N and Borders, Amazon and even Costco; but the older volumes tend to have a very different provenance. I spent a good chunk of the 1970s buying paperbacks (Star Trek books, Harlan Ellison and Ballantine Adult Fantasy) from my local Waldenbooks, a Manlius drugstore or one of the bookstores around Syracuse University. More interesting, perhaps, are the ones I either inherited or raided from my parents' library: the Who's Who-type books my mom was in, my favorite poetry collection, the Robert Frost book that once had a love poem hidden in it (not shown here), and an Ogden Nash collection with the spine missing.

After I met John in 1977, the book-collecting became more serious and more diverse in its sources. We scoured thrift shops and used bookstores and library sales, all over the country. Here's one of my rarer L'Engle books, clearly ex-library, but not a conventional library. Before Herman Franz of Utica, NY bought it outright, this 1951 first edition was apparently available as a rental. I don;t actually remember where I found this book, but I think it may have been at a book sale in Ohio!

On the extra credit, I'm trying to remember the last book I actually finished reading. It's probably The Grand Tour, by Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. In September when I found myself jobless, I found some excuse (a rediscovered gift card, perhaps?) to buy a new edition of Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. This in turn enabled me to read its sequel, The Grand Tour, which I bought some time ago while waiting to purchase one of the later Harry Potter books at midnight. Since reading those two books back to back (and they cheered me up immensely at the time) I've been wanting to read the third in the series, The Mislaid Magician, or Ten Years After. The fact that the latter book arrived from Amazon just before I get my new job gives this extra credit paragraph a nice symmetry, don't you think?

So. Where do you get your books? Is there some independent bookseller you're trying to singlehandedly keep in business with your purchases? A used bookstore where you get rid of almost as many books as you buy? An online retailer whose name begins with A? One of those ubiquitous big chains? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back to this entry, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to post the results. Meanwhile...

For Weekend Assignment #251: Fantasy Sabbatical, Florinda asked us where we would go and what we would do with a 6 month paid sabbatical. Here are excerpts from your responses:

Mary said in comments...

I think you need that 6 months. There are a couple of dad's friends whom I'd take in if I had a free 6 months.

Julie said...

Seriously, I'd like to do a book about England and/or Europe, so that sort of leaves out the beach stuff, unless I were to spend a lot of time along the Mediterranean. But even more seriously, that's not where I'd want to spend all of my time.

Florinda said...

To begin with, I think I would opt for a major change of scenery, and spend my six months' leave in the opposite corner of the country - New England. I lived in Connecticut until I was twelve, but have barely been back there since my family moved south. However, my home base for the period would be my favorite East Coast city, Boston (don't tell that to my birthplace, New York, though).

Tall Paul said...

So where would I spend it? With my camera in a rental car (a comfortable rental car!) - traveling all around the United States. Why drive? More often than not, the best trips I have taken in my life have been road trips.

Mike said...

So, where would I go? Is it okay if I drink beer? Good. I'd probably go a few places. I'd head out to the Pacific Northwest first. Maybe travel from Vancouver down through Oregon and stop before I got to California. (No offense California!)

That's it for now. Assuming you're not too busy reading, I hope you'll turn up here to tell us about your preferred book suppliers for this Weekend Assignment. And yes, I'm still soliciting your suggestions for future Weekend Assignment topics. Email me your ideas at mavarin@aol.com anytime. If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks. And thanks to Florinda and Laura for two great Assignments in a row!

Karen

Update! Laura belatedly did her own Assignment:

I get books from numerous places. Some of them are fairly generic - Amazon, my local Borders store, my local B&N, and Hofstra University's campus bookstore for some of my textbooks. However, I would like to mention my favorite used bookstores as well...

Weekend Assignment #251: Fantasy Sabbatical

Hooray! This week, two of you finally took pity on me after weeks and weeks of me begging for suggestions for future topics. Please welcome our first guest "professor," Florinda, assigner of today's Weekend Assignment. (The extra credit is mine.)

Weekend Assignment #251: You have a six-month paid sabbatical, and you can spend it anywhere you like EXCEPT on a beach drinking margaritas. Where do you go, and what do you do while you're there?

Extra Credit: In real life, have you ever gone anywhere enjoyable at an employer's expense?

Not being fond of either margaritas or lying on the beach, I have no problem at all with Florinda's limitations here. I suppose my own answer to this depends on whether I'm assuming the entity paying my way has employed me as an accountant or as a writer. I would throw in "church webmaster" as a third possibility, but to imagine such largess for so small a service stretches credulity a bit too far. So let's just take the other two paths, and see where they lead us...er, me.

Would researching amusement park accounting in Florida
or UK accounting practices constitute a "Jolly Holiday?"

Okay, then, as an accountant, where could I usefully go on sabbatical? Aside from back to school, there are numerous possibilities, depending on what sort of employer I have. If, for example, I worked for Disneyland (yes, I'd relocate for a high-paying job with them), I could take a sabbatical to Orlando, to observe accounting practices at Walt Disney World and related entities, and research best practices at other Florida attractions. If I worked for an accounting firm, I could conceivably go intern at FASB, the Federal Accounting Standards Board, in Norwalk, CT. Or I could go to London, and research international accounting standards there. Yes, I think I'd like that better!

Or if I were working for a governmental entity, I could go to Washington DC, and observe the new administration's efforts to get the economy back on track, and the accounting implications for various government agencies. The GAO would no doubt be the key component of my researches.

Now, if I could get a publisher to pay me an advance to research a book for six months, that would really be something. I'd definitely try to go to London for that. Perhaps I'd research a Doctor Who interview book, gathering interviews with people who are still alive from the entire history of the show, with side trips to Wales and elsewhere. Or I could write a survey of British children's fiction, and explore the allure of London as a place of magical characters. Heck, I'm sure I could get a book out of selected holdings of the British Museum, or the writing of T.H. White. And yes, I could even explore London as the setting for a novel.

You know, if I had my choice of any of these, I'd take my six months in London, thank-you-very-much!

As for the extra credit, I was fortunate to be a travel agent in the late 1980s, when there was still such a thing as Fam (familiarization) trips. In March 1988 (or was in March 1989?) Travel Tree sent me on a three day whirlwind tour of Anaheim, CA called Anaheim Tag Days. I toured a number of hotels, danced at the Disneyland Hotel, had my picture taken with an Elvis impersonator, visited a wax museum, picked up a zillion brochures in the convention center, and had half a day each at Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm. It was physically and emotionally exhausting, but a lot of fun. A year and a half later or thereabouts, I took another Fam trip, this time to Mazatlan. I think I was actually in Mazatlan for 23 hours, during which time I toured something like ten or fifteen hotels (mostly on foot, in 90 degree, humid weather), held an iguana, ate dinner at a place with a Folklorico show, and had 45 minutes at the beach with a boogie board. Beautiful place, Mazatlan, but by the time I left I could hardly walk due to the killer schedule arranged by the tour company.

I have photos from both of these trips, and if I can find the box they're in I'll post samples sometime over the next week.

So where would you go on sabbatical if you could, and what would you do? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back to this entry, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to post the results. Meanwhile...

For Weekend Assignment #250: Hot or Cold?, I asked you whether you'd rather be too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer, if you had to choose one or the other. Here are excerpts from your responses:

Laura said...

Since I'm a redhead, I also don't like sunlight, and winter tends to be cloudier and thus I get sunburned less than in the summer. It definitely feels like New York has been colder and windier this year than in the past.

Florinda said...

To my mind, 80-degree weather does NOT say "January," although I can certainly understand the allure. I spent ten of my growing-up years in Florida and have been in SoCal for almost seven years now, so it's not like warmer winters are unfamiliar to me - it's that they just don't seem right, somehow.

Julie said...

Do I have to pick? I hate the extremes, which is pretty funny considering I live in Texas. My office is too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter. But I suppose I can pile more clothes on, so I'd reluctantly say winter, though I'll regret it.

Mike said...

As of the last forecast I saw, we are going to be approximately 5 degrees tomorrow and probably won't get above zero Thursday. That's too cold for me. I can handle winter when it is in the 20's and 30's, but once it gets into the teens, I want out.

That's it for now! Assuming nobody sends you out of town this week (or even if they do!), I hope you'll turn up here to tell us your preferred sabbatical project for this Weekend Assignment. And yes, I'm still soliciting your suggestions for future Weekend Assignment topics. Email me your ideas at mavarin@aol.com anytime. If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks. And let's have a round of applause for Florinda's great Assignment!

Karen