RIF Truck

Hey Soul Mates,
here is my response to all of the comments from my previous blog "The Year I Read Books." Reading IS fundamental. Thanks for the recommendations.

For the unwashed, RIF used to have these great TV commercials featuring a bookmobile that never saw 5 minutes in my neighborhood as a kid. Instead, we had to hoof it a half-mile to the public library. Part of that old-fashioned "get out and exercise" thing in the '70s. To be honest, my favorite thing to borrow from the Heights library wasn't books, but the vinyl of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night and Magical Mystery Tour. No kidding. You always got a cool record carrying bag to take them home in.

Oh, also for the uninitiated, THIS is the bookish Scarlett Johannson, proudly showing off her... Louis Vuitton bookbag. It's got room for four paperbacks or a hardback. There's a small side pocket for a box of raisins or reading glasses. And a special holder on the inside for her library card. Enjoy those books, Scarlett. Or perhaps she's checked out some Rush Hour Soul CDs from the RIF truck. We'd endorse that.


Have a great weekend and a good Friday. Ha ha.
Love, Power, Peace

The Year I Read Books

Hey Soul Mates,
It was Egon Spengler who declared back in 1984 that print was dead. Stuff and nonsense. Lately my favorite pastime has been picking up books and reading them. There've been lots of times I've bought books or been lent them and let them languish on a shelf or worse in storage. I might have several going at once and none of them get finished. But I'm trying to rectify that.

At the end of 2006, I bought a second hand copy of Stephen King's On Writing after reading that the creators of Lost gushed about it (and his epic The Stand) in an interview with Mr. King. That became the springboard for half an idea. In the book, King says to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. Which means reading as much as you can. Same thing goes for music. I try to listen to as much as possible. Not to an overwhelming extent, but to understand the tools for construction.

Then, on Sunday, I espied a row of book journals/logs. In them, there are spaces for listing the books you've finished, who wrote them, your own personal thoughts, etc. You can find them at any fine bookstore, but I figured I go a slightly cheaper route. I bought a simple leather bound journal, pocket-sized, like the ones I use for travelling. It is less cumbersome than the pre-fabbed book books. So, I'm keeping track of what I read and it's pretty dang cool. Years from now, I'll be able to see what I read, how I came into possession of the book and why I read it/what I thought of it.

I always felt like I couldn't finish fiction, novels particularly. Always seemed like it took forever to get through something of more than 300 pages where plot was involved. But to my surprise Saturday, after 2 years of languishing on the bookshelf, the nightstand, in backpacks or worse, I completed Carlos Ruiz Zafon's mystery/melodrama Shadow Of The Wind. The last time I had read a page of it was 4 July 2005.

In March, I whisked through Mike Jacobson's page-turning debut Jacob Have I Loved, and thus wound up being first to review it. When I had caught up logging my reading total for the first 4 months of the year, I'd run 6 books cover to cover. Half of them fiction! Ain't I special?

What I'm getting at, is that I'm enjoying reading and I'm spilling my guts that I love a good used bookstore as much as a good used record store. In my neighborhood, there is the Iliad. A wonderfully funky spot to pick up $2 paperbacks by Ian Fleming, Graham Greene or Stephen King. Or as I did Monday, I unearthed a $1 hardback of Lonne Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, complete with photos from the original off-Broadway production. The Iliad has moved a few blocks further from my place, no longer walking distance, but always worth a detour. They also have a plethora of wonky cats, allergic types beware. [If you are in Atlanta, the Book Nook is a comparable (but less vibey) place to find bargains.]

It seems that libraries still exist, though I always have trouble proving I live anywhere to librarians. So I have become a regular at the local Borders, too. They are good enough to send me coupons every week. Might as well give a junkie $5 off his next hit. But as I mentioned, places like the Iliad are the mack. You can't necessarily pull up a chair and a latte, but at a dollar a pop, the price can't be beaten.

I don't really have a numerical goal to reach. But I'd like to fill in the 90+ page journal before the end of the year. I'm using up about 1/2 to 2 pages per entry. 45 books. One a week. Thar's a lotto reading in store. "Literarily!"

Love, Power, Peace