Bibliobits

Iowa Book & Supply:  If You Can Get Past the Campus Paraphernalia, It's a Good Bookstore

I'm thrilled to be home, reading my blogs again and catching up on articles about Borders' financial recovery.  When I wasn't doing my stints at the hospital, I bought FIVE BOOKS at various bookstores, my favorite being Iowa Book & Crook, but I'm happy to support Borders again. 

"They know you're back in town," my husband said. 

Most of the time I was reading on my Nook--I hardly dared to buy a Kobo because I feared Borders would go out of business any minute--but there's nothing better than a real physical book. After finishing Kate Pullinger's The Mistress of Nothing, I discovered I myself was the mistress of an e-book I'd never read again.  I can't sell it and I can't give it away, and I usually give 100 REALLY GOOD BOOKS to the Charity Book Sale. So nobody gets to read my copy of this Governor General's award winner, as it metaphorically rattles around in my e-reader until I delete it.  That's why it's much, much better to download free out-of-print books from manybooks.net onto your e-reader.

Anyway, I am reminded  of this hilarious video episode from "The Book vs. the Kindle" at Green Apple Books in San Francisco.  I do love my Nook, by the way, but you're going to understand the point of this immediately.

So an e-reader is really best for reading books in the public domain.  I have, however, bought some e-books I love, among them Alison Weir's Lady in the Tower.

What's been happening in the blog & review world this week?

Dovegreyreader is reading more men writers this year.  She has started a William Golding project, and, coincidentally, my husband collected some William Golding paperbacks to read in 2011, "but I can always change my mind," he said when I told him Dovegreyreader was his soulmate.  (He thinks I should stop blogging and return to writing essays and is tired of hearing about dovegrey.) 

Elaine Showalter at The Washington Post has written a fascinating review of Stephanie Coontz's A Strange Stirring, a study of women who read Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in the '60s.  

The National Book Critics Circle has announced its award finalists.