Everything Old is New Again

In case you were wondering, the title of this post is the theme of this semester's reading material. Last semester I realized I was very into the 'women's studies' area of historical exploration, and I decided I needed a focused vein of inquiry in my free reading books. I wanted to re-read all of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin Series (armed with my two news books from paperbackswap, Men of War: Life in Nelson's Navy by P O'B himself, and Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian. (I'm waiting for a copy of this book to show up on my Wish List Request Filled queue any day now -- When I have that, my P O'B experience will be complete. Plus I'll be able to make a dish called The Last of the True French Short Bastards. I love historical cookbooks.)

So that's this semester's theme: Everything Old is New Again. I'm reading many books I've already read before, many books I haven't, but are on historical things -- I'm in the middle of Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers and Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, which as we speak is being made into a movie.





Yeah, I'm excited, too. Crime, Tommy guns, the 1930s, and Christian Bale. But I digress.

So I took this "What Kind of Reader are You?" Quiz (as seen and promoted on Jane Austen Today, which I subscribe to.) and this is what I got:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Book Snob You like to think you're one of the literati, but actually you're just a snob who can read. You read mostly for the social credit you can get out of it.
Literate Good Citizen
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I have to say, I'm a little...leery of this result. I don't think I read for social credit (although, granted, being the person at parties who always has random things to say is a social function, albeit not a very loved one.) But I want to know now -- Who gets social credit for reading?

Something to Read

We in the writing business sometimes forget about the people on the other end of our pipeline -- the people in the reading buisness. This is paradoxically absurd, because I know for a fact that many of the people in the writing business are ALSO in the reading buisness.

This man, however, is out to profit both ends of the spectrum--

http://somethingtoread.net/bike.html

It's a project called Something To Read, and if you're in the vicinity of Wicker Park in Chicago any time soon, you should go and see if you can find him. It's the brainchild of Gabe Levinson, and it's attracted the attention of more prestigious pens than mine, like the people at the Chicago Tribune, which ran a rather nice article entitled

A bicycle built for books

in last sunday's Q section. Personally, I think this man is brilliant. He's helping people read. I would, however, give him more brownie points if he were to start the same thing with RECYCLED, SECOND-HAND books.

So, Gabe Levinson, if you're reading this blog, there's an idea for you. (and if you like it, give my freinds at SCARCE a call. I'm sure they'd love to help you. To everyone else, check out his website. He sounds like a pretty groovy guy.