Ron Howard's Grinch anybody? Eh? EH?
Right. Well, Chris had the presence of mind to purchase me a Nook before embarking on this little (and/or massive) cycling endeavor. He said some nonsense about not wanting to repeat Central America 2011 and mainland Europe 2012 - something about carrying 35 paperbacks around because I refused to not read all the time on trips, and how he wanted room for underwear this time around. Whatever. I got a Nook, and he was nice enough to resist the urge to buy me the big, dumb, fancy Nook that's really an iPad and is only used to placate fussy toddlers in grocery stores (which is totally understandable and appropriate, but let's not call it an eReader, please, because then Chris buys it for me and immediately commandeers it to read National Geographic and play Scrabble, and I am still reading nothing while fussy toddlers and fussy Christophers are momentarily content in Walmart).
I am not the eReader type. I am also not the type in tight pants and Urkel glasses that believes books will be eradicated unless we return to darkness and have monks use quills to meticulously copy 50 Shades of Grey. The Book of Kells was a bit overdone. Just imagine the illustrations for 50 Shades of Grey. Yucky. (I've never read 50 Shades of Grey...) Of course, I am also not the type in tight pants and Urkel glasses that believes the secret to happiness is encoded in the biography of Steve Jobs, and I must therefore convert the entirety of my existence to binary (if that's even a relevant Apple joke).
I just like to use my hands to turn real pages. Perhaps that puts me back in the fussy toddler category, ironically enough. They seem to love to turn pages. To my credit, I read what's on the pages before I yank on them and spill applesauce everywhere.
When you have to travel light, though, and you cannot go a day without escaping from social interactions, the eReader is a game changer. Christopher has his DSLR in his saddle bag. I'll have my Nook in mine. And it has to be that way. I can't afford the weight of Midnight's Children when I have to bike in a headwind to get to a reading spot (what Chris calls a "campsite"). So, I get the appeal of the digital.
With one remaining holdout - Nook is not a book title. Why, in the name of God's green planet that's 70% water, would you ask someone reading on an eReader the following question - Are you enjoying that Nook? I am not reading the Nook. Please understand me. I am NOT reading the Nook. The Nook is not a story. The Nook is the means by which I am forced to read Midnight's Children because I cannot afford a troupe of Bedouins to carry my library on camelback (my preferred mode of travel). Ask me about Midnight's Children. Ask me anything reading related. I'll try and be nice. But what more is there to say about the Nook other than, "I read Midnight's Children on it?" It's a means to an end...and I don't care about the mechanics of the means, or whether or not I can subscribe to Elle on it.
Also, I don't mean to be that grad student type that name drops Salman Rushdie. I don't know him or anything. He just happens to be on my Nook, which makes him relevant to that drawn out little tale.
The point is - Nook will be coming. And Nook is only a tool. Now for the only important information in the post so far.
Lauren's Expect-to-Expand-Dramatically Iceland Reading List
Right. Well, Chris had the presence of mind to purchase me a Nook before embarking on this little (and/or massive) cycling endeavor. He said some nonsense about not wanting to repeat Central America 2011 and mainland Europe 2012 - something about carrying 35 paperbacks around because I refused to not read all the time on trips, and how he wanted room for underwear this time around. Whatever. I got a Nook, and he was nice enough to resist the urge to buy me the big, dumb, fancy Nook that's really an iPad and is only used to placate fussy toddlers in grocery stores (which is totally understandable and appropriate, but let's not call it an eReader, please, because then Chris buys it for me and immediately commandeers it to read National Geographic and play Scrabble, and I am still reading nothing while fussy toddlers and fussy Christophers are momentarily content in Walmart).
I am not the eReader type. I am also not the type in tight pants and Urkel glasses that believes books will be eradicated unless we return to darkness and have monks use quills to meticulously copy 50 Shades of Grey. The Book of Kells was a bit overdone. Just imagine the illustrations for 50 Shades of Grey. Yucky. (I've never read 50 Shades of Grey...) Of course, I am also not the type in tight pants and Urkel glasses that believes the secret to happiness is encoded in the biography of Steve Jobs, and I must therefore convert the entirety of my existence to binary (if that's even a relevant Apple joke).
I just like to use my hands to turn real pages. Perhaps that puts me back in the fussy toddler category, ironically enough. They seem to love to turn pages. To my credit, I read what's on the pages before I yank on them and spill applesauce everywhere.
When you have to travel light, though, and you cannot go a day without escaping from social interactions, the eReader is a game changer. Christopher has his DSLR in his saddle bag. I'll have my Nook in mine. And it has to be that way. I can't afford the weight of Midnight's Children when I have to bike in a headwind to get to a reading spot (what Chris calls a "campsite"). So, I get the appeal of the digital.
With one remaining holdout - Nook is not a book title. Why, in the name of God's green planet that's 70% water, would you ask someone reading on an eReader the following question - Are you enjoying that Nook? I am not reading the Nook. Please understand me. I am NOT reading the Nook. The Nook is not a story. The Nook is the means by which I am forced to read Midnight's Children because I cannot afford a troupe of Bedouins to carry my library on camelback (my preferred mode of travel). Ask me about Midnight's Children. Ask me anything reading related. I'll try and be nice. But what more is there to say about the Nook other than, "I read Midnight's Children on it?" It's a means to an end...and I don't care about the mechanics of the means, or whether or not I can subscribe to Elle on it.
Also, I don't mean to be that grad student type that name drops Salman Rushdie. I don't know him or anything. He just happens to be on my Nook, which makes him relevant to that drawn out little tale.
The point is - Nook will be coming. And Nook is only a tool. Now for the only important information in the post so far.
Lauren's Expect-to-Expand-Dramatically Iceland Reading List
| Salman Rushdie Anne Carson Chinua Achebe Jumpa Lahiri Per Pedersen | Midnight's Children Autobiography of Red Things Fall Apart Interpreter of Maladies Out Stealing Horses |
That should last me a nice two weeks in Iceland, one if the weather's bad. Anybody notice the global theme? I have been on a trial separation from the bulk of modern American fiction, with a small, but healthy appetite of truly astounding exceptions that just barely keep me paying attention to American book culture. Barely. It's been a few, or seven, years since the original departure, for rather obvious reasons, in my mind, and I've found my reading experiences to be much more pleasant when I use the following screening system:
1. Was it written in America, or endorsed by E! Hollywood whatnot?
2. Does it have a theme of sisterly love, the relationships between sisters, and/or a book cover with sisters back to back, holding hands, etcetera?
3. Was it reviewed positively in a non-literary magazine?
4. Did it make the New York Time's Bestseller List, but fail to be reviewed by most book critics, including the New York Times staff?
5. Is it on the Top 100 Most Purchased list on my Nook?
6. Is it one in a themed series (Examples - Alphabetical Theme, Drab Color Theme, Bondage Theme, Blood Sucking Misogyny Theme, Knitting/Jane Austen/Baking/Quilting Club Theme, Rogue Attorney Theme, Medieval Monster Tattoo Theme, and So On)?
7. Was it written by a Victorian woman, and designed to maintain the feminine status quo of inferiority, and therefore presumed by many to be my favorite books EVER?
8. Did a non-female-comedian celebrity have anything to do with it whatsoever?
Too many yeses, and it's a resounding F' NO from me.
This list doesn't make me popular among my literate peers.
I acknowledge the utterly unmasked snark of what I just wrote.
I know what it says about the nature of my reading - that I don't care to do it for anyone but myself.
I see the perhaps unfair disdain in it.
I do.
And yet...in this one area of my personality...I am fine with being bad.
According to an article I read recently, I am a book snob. True. Too true, really. What I didn't much care for, though, was the article's suggestion that I am preventing others from being literate by having extremely specific tastes and owning those tastes. If the scenario were reversed, and reading the above Theme Series was considered the epitome of literary taste, I would certainly not be ashamed of having my own book preferences. I loathe certain Victorian literature pieces (and/or certain vampire literature pieces) and what I believe they trick young adolescent girls into believing about love and the feminine "mystique"...but my distaste has yet to prevent these books from being printed, taught in schools, and thoroughly enjoyed by countless readers. And rightly so. I'll just read my snobbish world literature instead, and pretend I understood everything I read, and then we'll all be happy.
But read the article yourself, too, please. Tell me what I didn't see. Maybe we aren't so bad?
1. Was it written in America, or endorsed by E! Hollywood whatnot?
2. Does it have a theme of sisterly love, the relationships between sisters, and/or a book cover with sisters back to back, holding hands, etcetera?
3. Was it reviewed positively in a non-literary magazine?
4. Did it make the New York Time's Bestseller List, but fail to be reviewed by most book critics, including the New York Times staff?
5. Is it on the Top 100 Most Purchased list on my Nook?
6. Is it one in a themed series (Examples - Alphabetical Theme, Drab Color Theme, Bondage Theme, Blood Sucking Misogyny Theme, Knitting/Jane Austen/Baking/Quilting Club Theme, Rogue Attorney Theme, Medieval Monster Tattoo Theme, and So On)?
7. Was it written by a Victorian woman, and designed to maintain the feminine status quo of inferiority, and therefore presumed by many to be my favorite books EVER?
8. Did a non-female-comedian celebrity have anything to do with it whatsoever?
Too many yeses, and it's a resounding F' NO from me.
This list doesn't make me popular among my literate peers.
I acknowledge the utterly unmasked snark of what I just wrote.
I know what it says about the nature of my reading - that I don't care to do it for anyone but myself.
I see the perhaps unfair disdain in it.
I do.
And yet...in this one area of my personality...I am fine with being bad.
According to an article I read recently, I am a book snob. True. Too true, really. What I didn't much care for, though, was the article's suggestion that I am preventing others from being literate by having extremely specific tastes and owning those tastes. If the scenario were reversed, and reading the above Theme Series was considered the epitome of literary taste, I would certainly not be ashamed of having my own book preferences. I loathe certain Victorian literature pieces (and/or certain vampire literature pieces) and what I believe they trick young adolescent girls into believing about love and the feminine "mystique"...but my distaste has yet to prevent these books from being printed, taught in schools, and thoroughly enjoyed by countless readers. And rightly so. I'll just read my snobbish world literature instead, and pretend I understood everything I read, and then we'll all be happy.
But read the article yourself, too, please. Tell me what I didn't see. Maybe we aren't so bad?
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