Book stuff

A few weeks ago I put some NPR free podcasts on my ipod to listen to while doing cardio. I love NPR, I listen to them often while driving. So tonight at the gym, while doing another 45 minutes on the machines I turned on the book review podcast. I am always wanting to hear about new authors and books to read.

The first part of the show talked about something I find interesting. Books versus the internet. Are published books going out of style? Is it easier to just log-on to a site and start reading or actually open a book and hold it in your hands? One of my favrite types of book that I read is historical fiction. If you look at history books have not always been available. It used to be that only the clergy or the very wealthy or learned had the books. And now with the accessibility of the internet will books become obsolete?

I admit that I love to read. I haven't always felt this way, after high school I went straight into a summer semester of college, then right to a month of intense study as part of the Mormon missionary training. Then as a missionary we were to study the Bible or Book of Mormon every day in the morning and the evening. Then after the mission I went right back into school. I got burned out! After I entered the work-force I stopped reading. It was too much to even take the time to read a magazine or the newspaper. It was maybe 15 years ago that I decided I was watching way too many mind-numbing things on TV. I turned off the TV and got some old books my parent were going to throw out and I got back into reading. That first year I counted, I had read over 75 books in a year. And fifteen years later I still love to read.

But what about all the things you can find, research and have immediately at hand on the internet? I have learned so many things by finding something online. But for me, its only short term, for when I have a very short attention span. One must also remember that finding information on the major searching engine sites is that the information is not always accurate. It is filtered for what has gotten the most hits. I know there are some people out there that could correct me on that point and that could explain way better that I ever could how search engine sites work. But getting back on track... I'm not dismissing the internet and how easy it is to find information. I just can't let it be the only thing I ever read. I still like to pick up a book and for a lack of better words, I get lost in the story. When I read my mind sort-of kicks into this movie scene in my mind and I can visualize what is happening in the story. I can't get that from the internet.

But... what about blogs? For me this is something new. This is a journal or a diary of me and my life. As I said in my first post, I wish I could go back and read how my parents or grandparent were feeling. It would be interesting to read what they thought when Franklin Roosevelt was elected. What were they thinking and feeling about current events in their lives? What was something that made them smile or laugh or made them want to dance? If they kept a journal, it could only be shared by others if it was published. Or passed around by family members aftet they passed away. And then it could be laid aside and forgotten. Then what? We'll never know. Or if someone has kept old letters (that's another thing that I think has gone for good with the invention of email) unless they're read and copied no one will know what those who wrote them felt.

Which reminds me, I need to get that box of my mom's journal and old letters out and copy them or type them out for my siblings. So that they can read and see how mom felt about things going on in her life.

Did I ramble? LOL. Let me know some of your favorite books.