Mediateque?
The other day I went to look at a new school building around here. Actually, it was my old school – though of course a new building. Esthetically this new building can’t be compared to the old shoebox-like one where earlier students – me included – went. Unfortunately, there are other things that are even worse than when I went there.
Sure, there were plenty of table tennis tables and a couple of game tables – tables with games painted on the tabletop. I’m sure that kids who like that sort of thing will be pleased about that. In the schoolyard there was even a swing. (For teenagers!?) The classrooms are well lighted and spacious and look as if they’ll do nicely for whatever subject will be taught in there. I saw nice looking rooms for woodwork, needlework, home economics, art and music. So far so good, right?
However, from a friend of a friend, I’ve heard that the actual teaching is poor and the so called mediateque (?) really turned out to be a disappointment. When I walked in, I expected to find a well equipped computer room/media room. What I found was a so called library with a couple of book shelves and a table with four (?) computers. There were even almost as many in the needlework room. If I’d had to go to this school, and believe me, I’m happy not to – I had a minor anxiety attack as soon as I walked through the main entrance, because of less than pleasant memories from my school days – I would have been extremely disappointed in the library/mediateque. I would most likely have gone through the books that interested me in a few months. And then – for the rest of my three years there, what then? The town library?
Not good! If that’s the way all schools at this level (roughly junior high) are, I feel sorry for the girls (and boys) who are like me. Although I probably would have anyway. But still, a well stocked library would have been some consolation.
Some vegan books
I found these links to books about vegans and/or veganism, that includes fiction about vegans. It’s something I’ve been looking for for quite a while and though I haven’t had time to check them out in detail, I think it’s a really great start. Hopefully I’ll find something I’ll like here.
Fiction with Vegan and AR sensibilities
Free library books online
Since I found out that library books are available as free downloads here in Sweden, I’ve wanted to try. For various reasons, I’d really prefer not to have to go to the library and pick up actual books (though when it comes to buying new copies at the book store, it’s the other way around.)
Anyway, last night I decided to have a go. I did a search for a couple of mysteries I’ve wanted to read, but not felt able to buy – a combination of lack of money and doubts about the quality of those books – and found five titles. I thought ‘Great!’.
Most of the books were supposedly available in several different formats, including mobi and epub. I’d read that you could download the books from your computer to a portable device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, any kind of e-book reader…). That’s interesting, even though I don’t own any such device, not personally. However, it was soon evident that all those symbols next to the title didn’t mean a thing. Adobe Digital Edition was the only software that worked. It gets worse.
I typed in my library card number and borrowed the first book on my list. So far, so good. I checked that I could at least open it on the computer and I could. Then I went on to the next two books and unfortunately, I got them in the reverse order of publication. When I’d finished the download of book nr 2 in the series, I get an error message saying I can only download three books in a seven day period. Three? I looked over the download window and the file where the books were saved. No. Just two. But the site was convinced. I’d already downloaded my three books. Since I refuse to read book 2 in a series before book 1, for all intents and purposes, I only got one book out of the whole frustrating experience. Three books might have been enough for seven days, one definitely isn’t.
Then my sister tried to transfer the book to her iPhone, just to see if it could be done and – to make a long story short – it couldn’t. Well, to be clear, it could be transferred, but then it couldn’t be opened. She went to check on the newspaper article where we’d found out about electronic book borrowing, and eventually found a couple of solutions that were supposedly going to work. Again, to make a long story short, neither of them did.
By that time, I was beginning to regret thinking of this idea in the first place, but at least I’ll now be able to read book three in a series where I’ve actually read books 1 and 2. And I’ll be able to try again in seven days time.
All this has also given me food for thought.
After our successful experiment with the Kindle, I had begun to plan ahead to a time when I’ll be able to afford an e-book reader and/or an iPod Touch or possibly an iPad. Now I’m wondering if I should bother. I love the Kindle. I’m sure I’d like the iPod Touch and the iPad, but would I actually have any real use for them?
I’m a book lover first and foremost even if I do love a shiny gadget, but the way I see it, I’d primarily be getting the e-book reader so I can download all those free books from Project Gutenberg and similar sites. I don’t see myself spending any money on new e-books. For one, they’re actually a lot more expensive than a paperback, and as far as I can understand, I won’t be able to read my free downloads on the Kindle. Secondly, in my opinion, nothing beats the feeling of holding a ‘real’, printed paper book in my hands.
I could get an iPod Touch when my old iPods (very old) stop working, which might be relatively soon, judging by the time it takes to charge them and how long they last before the next charge. But if I can’t even read my library books on it, maybe it won’t be worth it. As it happens, I really prefer listening to something with better sound quality. I’m not into taking all kinds of gadgets along when I go out. It’s just not worth it.
Maybe I should just be grateful I’m leaning towards an option that will save me a lot of money, but somehow that doesn’t seem very cheering. At this time I could really use some cheering up.
Oh, well, I should probably just wait and see. For all I know, my financial situation could change in the near future and then I could take the whole thing under consideration again.
World Book Day
Because it’s World Book Day, I’d like to share a little story about a few of the first books I read myself, as opposed to all the others grownups read to me. Of course I didn’t love those any less.
When I turned four, I got – among other things – Tintin in Tibet and two little paperbacks about a girl named Camilla who solved mysteries in her little town. The first ended up in shreds, after I’d read it so many times. It also ended up giving me a lifelong interest in Tibet and the Tibetan culture.
The Camilla books were fun, because we shared a name, though I had a bit of trouble understanding why she was ten years older than me… They were cosy and a little exciting.
Book meme: Which ones have you read?
The BBC predicts most people have only read 6 out of 100 of these books.
01 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (seen the movie, tv series and read the book)
02 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (of course)
03 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
06 The Bible (assorted chapters…)
07 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
09 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (read The Golden Compass. didn’t like it)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier (seen the movie)
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot (seen the tv series)
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (yes, had to for school, but liked it)
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens (seen the tv series, great)
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (saw some of the movie, hated it)
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (had to for school, hated it)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
34 Emma – Jane Austen (and the movie and/or tv series)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen (one of my favorites)
36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (had to for school)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (sort of for school, hated it)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (will read some day)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (liked it, except for one chapter at the beginning and one at the end)
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (don’t remember, maybe)
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (and at least one movie.)
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray (seen the tv series)
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (probably saw it as a movie)
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (had to for school, didn’t like it)
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (most of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton (no, but many others)
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams (and the movie)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Meme: Which ones have you read?
The BBC predicts most people have only read 6 out of 100 of these books.
01 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (seen the movie, tv series and read the book)
02 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (of course)
03 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
06 The Bible (assorted chapters…)
07 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
09 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (read The Golden Compass. didn’t like it)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier (seen the movie)
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot (seen the tv series)
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (yes, had to for school, but liked it)
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens (seen the tv series, great)
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (saw some of the movie, hated it)
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (had to for school, hated it)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (maybe, don’t remember)
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
34 Emma – Jane Austen (and the movie and/or tv series)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen (one of my favorites)
36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis (and the movie.)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (had to for school)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (sort of for school, hated it)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (will read some day)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (liked it, except for one chapter at the beginning and one at the end)
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (don’t remember, maybe)
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (and at least one movie.)
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray (seen the tv series)
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (probably saw it as a movie)
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (had to for school, didn’t like it)
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (most of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton (no, but many others)
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams (and the movie)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Disappointing books
Warning: Self-pity
Lately almost all the books I’ve read have been disappointments, at least to some extent. I can’t believe I’ve completely lost my judgment so I can only imagine that somehow the books (or their writers) or I have changed. It’s probably the latter. The me of today has changed too much. I’m sadder and more disillusioned. Maybe if I manage to pull myself together and straighten my life out, I’ll become more enthusiastic about books again. Don’t get me wrong, I still love books, I just don’t seem to feel as happy about them as I did, even three or four years ago.
I feel my life slipping away, slipping through my fingers, like in that awful biblical story I was told about in what the people who ran my daycare had instead of Sunday school (Saturday school?). It’s been haunting me ever since. You probably know it, if you’re familiar with the Bible.
A girl walks across a field. She’s to pick only the best grains, but every time she sees what she believes to be the best, she catches sight of others in the distance, that seem bigger and better. In the end, she’s walked across the field, her basket empty, and.she can’t go back.
What worries me is that even though I’m probably somewhere on the field still, knowing I need to harvest the grains, I can’t do it. There’s always something preventing me and I can’t stand still either, I keep moving ahead, in one sense, yet not moving at all, in another sense. It scares me.
I don’t know what to do and I suppose not liking the few books I can afford, is the least of my problems. It’s just that those books should be brightening my days and instead, they’re not. A waste of money, that could have been put to better use elsewhere. Oh, well. Sorry about all the self-pity.
Warning: self-pity
Lately almost all the books I’ve read have been disappointments, at least to some extent. I can’t believe I’ve completely lost my judgment so I can only imagine that somehow the books (or their writers) or I have changed. It’s probably the latter. The me of today has changed too much. I’m sadder and more disillusioned. Maybe if I manage to pull myself together and straighten my life out, I’ll become more enthusiastic about books again. Don’t get me wrong, I still love books, I just don’t seem to feel as happy about them as I did, even three or four years ago.
I feel my life slipping away, slipping through my fingers, like in that awful biblical story I was told about in what the people who ran my daycare had instead of Sunday school (Saturday school?). It’s been haunting me ever since. You probably know it, if you’re familiar with the Bible.
A girl walks across a field. She’s to pick only the best grains, but every time she sees what she believes to be the best, she catches sight of others in the distance, that seem bigger and better. In the end, she’s walked across the field, her basket empty, and.she can’t go back.
What worries me is that even though I’m probably somewhere on the field still, knowing I need to harvest the grains, I can’t do it. There’s always something preventing me and I can’t stand still either, I keep moving ahead, in one sense, yet not moving at all, in another sense. It scares me.
I don’t know what to do and I suppose not liking the few books I can afford, is the least of my problems. It’s just that those books should be brightening my days and instead, they’re not. A waste of money, that could have been put to better use elsewhere. Oh, well. Sorry about all the self-pity.
