The wonderful world of books

Social media is an ever growing trend, moving at a rapid pace. Blogs are becoming more and more popular and face to face communication does not seem to hold the same effect as texting or facebook does. If one chooses to google a subject area that they hold an interest in, thousands and thousands of hits will arise on the server.

To put this so called assumption to the test, I took my recent area of interest and googled away. My recent area of interest has been books lately. Between Megan Cabott and Nicholas Sparks, it is a wonder how I have time for homework. I have a million worlds I am able to escape to and enjoy.

Googling “Book Blogs,” roughly 28,100,000 hits came about. Out of so many blogs, I chose three that I actually read.

· Readers Read- http://www.readersread.com/
· Fine Books and Collections- www.blog.myfinebooks.com
· The Millions- www.millionsblog.com

The Readers Read blog consists of a reading blog, book reviews, and author essays and interviews. On post on the book blog entitles John Lithgow Talks Children's Books. This semester I am in a children’s literature course, and reading children books have become my favorite past time. The blog includes the author John Lithgow singing part of his book I Got Two Dogs. I enjoy when authors can make light of books and appeal to children on a different sensory level outside of just text.

For the Fine Books and Collections blog, on October 10, the blog consisted of promoting book collecting. The author of the blog talked about taking care of old books and treating them well. I find that there is reward when you walk into a used book store and find the first edition of a Jane Austen classic, or a book from the 1800’s that no one has heard the title. There is something that brings joy to me as I walk in to a used book store, not knowing what I will find, but walking away with a new treasure.

On The Millions blog, my favorite post was entitled Oprah Incurs Booksellers' Wrath. With Oprah endorsing many different things such as books, movies, artists, towels, jeans… anything she can label as something with her name… I loose my respect for different brands. A few years ago I read William Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury. Without a doubt, the next year, the same book…in fact the entire series… appeared on Oprah’s must read book list for the summer. Not to put down a person who loves to write and create, by all means I have the upmost respect for authors… But The Sound and The Fury was one of my least favorite books that I read in high school. But as soon as it went on Oprah’s book list, my parents decided to read it because the books she chooses are most of the time, reasonable. My parents attempted to finish the book, though they did not enjoy it. After the first section, my dad stopped reading and decided he would stick to his own book choices. But the Oprah show praised this book. Ironic, that when Oprah puts her name on something, people explode with wonder.

People have different tastes in books. Some love to sing aloud books to make them more interesting. Others enjoy the search of old books that keep some sort of classic feel about them. Some want to find and follow someone who endorses books to get a book suggestion. My thought is find something you love… a subject, an author, a genre… and read as much as you can.

Timeless...

"These past few months I've wondered and I have figured out that life runs in four sizes"

Life flashes by in the blink of an eye.  Time is wasted on so many different things.  What is time anyway? Time is the only earthly thing that is constant. It is always the same. One minute is always made up of sixty seconds.  Sixty minutes will always make up an hour. Time is the one thing I find running everything.  I could have done...(you fill in the blank)... if only there were more hours in the day.  Days go by one by one, but time seems to go faster each day. And I think I have figured out a way to put it into perspective... When you were one year old, time was slow... no you probably do not remember but stick with me here... One year was your whole life.  When you were two years old, time went by a little quicker... Why? Because it was 1/2 of your whole two years of life.  When you were 5, time flew by even faster.  The year when you were five was 1/5 of your life.  When you were 15, time went by faster than that.  The year when you were 15 was 1/15 of your life.  My point is, as you grow older, the years get shorter because it becomes a smaller fraction of your whole life.  So in all reality, the days do really grow shorter as we grow older.