Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Magic

Books are a kind of magic for me.  (yes, I'm going to finish my book page this week....)

I have several friends who use e-book readers like Kindle. I understand why, and am even attracted to the idea (techno - junky that I am...), but there is no magic in a virtual book.

Here's what I mean...

A couple of month ago I went to the library.  I looked at all the new books and found nothing.  So I walked the stacks.  (this is my problem with virtual books, I can't wander through the virtual stacks and smell, feel, touch the books.) I'm not looking for anything in particular, just looking at all the books to see if something sparks.  As I wander among the shelves, scanning titles, colors, designs, a book literally jumps of the shelf.  (This has happened often enough that I almost expect it and I always pay attention to the book.)  The book that jumped out at me was "What we leave behind" by Derrick Jensen.  I checked it out.  At home I started reading.  Interesting ideas, didn't like the writing style (two writers switching back and forth telling somewhat different stories.)  The ideas were intriguing but not that new to me.  I was about to give up, disappointed at the magic (which usually doesn't turn up a dud) when I noticed a reference to another book by D Jensen.  I returned "What We Leave Behind" and checked out Endgame v. 1 & 2.  They really sparked.  Challenged my thinking, fired me up.  That led to "Walking on Water" which I totally enjoyed and have read twice now.  Still some ideas I'm processing.  Then I went looking for other books and Derrick's site led me to Lierre Keith.  Her book, "The Vegetarian Myth" is the one my super-conscious mind was really looking for.  WOW.  I'm going back through it now, trying to process (I've even put out a call to some great thinkers to help me with this... )  I'll be adding this book to my list soon, but I'm not quite ready to write about it yet.

Anyway, back to magic.  For me, it always works.  It works with people too.  But I can't force it.  The universe (or god, or what ever) brings those things/people/ideas to me when I am ready.  The ones I don't miss have had a profound impact on my thoughts and on my life.  I do wonder about the ones I missed because I wasn't paying attention...

How do you choose books?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would appear that I use a very similar method as you - unless looking for a specific book mentioned by a blogger that I follow and read. =)

Garden Pheenix said...

Same method. Also I just came across him myself and ordered end game 1 and I think it's called How do I live my life or something. Good stuff!

Daphne Gould said...

My problem is that the electronic version has won me over. My husband gets most of my books for me (at least if they are scifi, which is most of what I read). So when he got a kindle I did too. I thought I'd hate it, but ended up loving it. I hate reading real books now. My local library branch doesn't have very many books. I can order from a huge system and it usually has multiple copies of anything but you have to order over the web and it will show up in around a week at the library. I usually read things that others have recommended. So it works for me.

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