Scientific Ink

Dunrie Greiling Ph.D., Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Books

The value of libraries and bookstores (gratitude #24)

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My wishlist on anobiiSo, there’s this blog I read, and the author has a book with a really compelling title. I’ve enjoyed his blog posts on the topic, and I had put his book on my Amazon wish list.

In support of my intention to acquire, maintain, and store less stuff, I moved most of my Amazon wish list to a wish list (personal card catalog) at the Ann Arbor District Library. They don’t have every book I’ve ever wanted, but they have an awful lot of them. Amazing. I suppose I’m not as unique as I thought ;). I’m also storing some of the list on my anobii.com bookshelf’s wish list.

Anyway, this blogger’s interesting sounding book with the compelling title was available from the library. I put it on hold, received the notification email, visited the library, checked it out, and then returned it the same day. Funny, flipping through the book, it seemed so tangential to my current interests and so, yes, I’ll say it, thin with huge spaces between lines, not many words on the page, not many pages. After touching the book, I no longer had any interest in its contents. Funny. Glad I didn’t buy it or get someone else to buy it for me.

Note to self – always touch books I’m going to buy or ask to be purchased for me. Online descriptions just don’t compare.

Enjoying getting lost in a book (gratitude, week 11)

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Snow I’ve had an Amazon wish list going for a while, collecting books I hear about that I want to read. It was getting longer and longer. At the same time, I am trying to optimize my belongings to fit into my space and I’m trying to keep the possessions I have in the house from expanding to fill all available space. So, I printed and emptied my Amazon wish list and I’m borrowing books from the Ann Arbor District Library.

I’m reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow right now. Beautiful, lyrical, sad, lonely, tragic, comic, dark, fun. Poetry and attraction and exile and family and childhood and revolution and secularism and political Islam all entwined in this story. Fun to enter a world so different from my own and see so much I recognize.

Encountered on the flyleaf of a Shakespeare anthology

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InscriptionLast night we were looking for a Shakespeare sonnet at dinner, so I pulled down The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Annotated from the shelf and opened it to discover this inscription

“To my darling Deedee, Xmas ’87. The greatest author in the English language! From the greatest Dad.”

I’m Deedee, my dad has been dead for a decade now, and this still makes me laugh out loud. He’s captured perfectly.

Take This Quiz: Are You an Under-buyer or an Over-buyer? | Zen Habits

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my unread book stockpileTake This Quiz: Are You an Under-buyer or an Over-buyer? | Zen Habits

This took me about 30 seconds. I’m definitely an under-buyer.

I revel in open, uncluttered space, get annoyed at piles o’stuff, don’t stockpile, and, consequently, I short myself on staples now and then (no milk or no cereal for a few days in a row, having to scrounge unconventional “breakfast items” in our cupboard).

I do depart from my general tendency in a few specific situations. I stockpile books, magazines, lined journals (filled and new blank ones), plus cosmetics (from Lush and from dermadoctor) that I can’t purchase locally. I think the cosmetic stockpiles come from trying to minimize the cost and annoyance of shipping. As for books, I can’t help myself. Oh, and if Floyd tolerated other kitties, I’d probably stockpile cats too.

Are you an under or an over-buyer? and where do you depart from your general tendency?

Three Cups of Tea

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Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a TimeI remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I was at my old job, working on a computer, not tuned into the news, when a colleague called and told us to tune into CNN. A rushing sense of unreality, helplessness, and shock followed. Then, we invaded Afghanistan, and I worried about the long-term effects of our military intervention as well as the immediate suffering it would create.

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