Return of Memoryfest: Day 8/31

[bironic]

(Thought I'd jazz it up with some of these icons. Retroactively.)


8. Middle School

In the car on vacation in Toronto, my mother glanced at the cover of a Deep Space Nine paperback I was reading, saw the drawing of Dr. Bashir and said, "He has a bulbous nose." Anytime the word "bulbous" comes up, that's what I think of.

WTF

Comments

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

I started reading when I was three (Pat the Pilot while waiting in the car for my mother to pick up some groceries) and have never really stopped. In fact, my first childhood ambition was to be a reader (admitted after my aunt caught me reading the old newspapers I was supposed to be wrapping glasses in during a move).

A friend gave me a guidebook for Buenos Aires this Christmas and then chided me for reading it in the bar - what did she think I would do with dozens of new pages of text!?

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

hahaha Indeed! Yesterday afternoon my best friend got all the texts for this semester's classes and it was 2 in the morning before she actually started looking them over. I was completely amazed. I was like, "Shit, son, if I were you, I would've been completely ignoring me all night and burying myself in those books instead of chatting!" "But they're my textbooks." XD Yeah, well, I just got a huge order from B&N that mostly consisted of textbooks which I plan to read for pleasure. Books are books and they're meant to be read!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was definitely one of those people who start reading textbooks before classes begin, because they're new and exciting and contain all sorts of information that you can know.

And add me to the textbooks-for-pleasure club. *points to newest additions of werewolf, fanfic/fandom and Pathology texts*

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

We're such geeks. I love us. XD ♥

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

*points to newest additions of werewolf, fanfic/fandom and Pathology texts*

There are textbooks about werewolves and about fanfic? They both sound interesting. Titles, please? (Along similar lines, have you read Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality? It's a fascinating book.) I'll pass on the pathology book, though: it sounds too much like a book I'd edit for work. (Who knows? I might even have edited it; I've worked on a lot of medical textbooks.)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I... want your job. No, really. I should email you about it one of these days.

There are textbooks about werewolves and about fanfic?

You betcha! I've got a shelf full of fanfic and fandom studies books. Most of them are sociological studies, some interdisciplinary collections of essays, and a few take a literary/textual perspective (my favorite). The two that I am most looking forward to reading are Sheenagh Pugh's The Democratic Genre: Fan fiction in a literary context and Hellekson & Busse's edited collection, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet (both pub. 2006).

There don't seem to be nearly as many books on werewolves as on vampires (which is okay with me *g*). The one I have here was a present from catilinarian. It's called The Complete Book of Werewolves and it's by Leonard R.N. Ashley. So far so mediocre -- would be better if he'd write complete passages instead of breaking his text up into paragraph-long subsections -- but will reserve judgment until the end.

Haven't read the book you mention. Don't know when I'll have time to check it out! So much to read, so very little time.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the titles! I'll have to check them out at Amazon.com (although, as you say, I have no idea when I'd get a chance to actually read them).

I... want your job. No, really. I should email you about it one of these days.

Feel free! (My email address is on my profile page). I'd be happy to hear from you.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Well, really! Words demand to be read. Are you also prone to reading milk and cereal cartons or whatever labeled items are in front of you at meals, even if you've read them before? Or do you always have a book or newspaper with you so the point is moot?

I don't know how old I was when I started reading, but some of my earliest memories are of books. And I haven't stopped either, though lately I've (sadly) been reading more fanfic and less printed material. One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions is to right the balance. (Started this weekend and everything -- Jonathan Lethem's novel As She Climbed Across the Table and part of a text on werewolves in pop culture.)

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to butt in and say how familiar that 'reading something just because it's there' feeling is. I frequently forget to bring something to read, so I end up reading random things in great detail. But textbooks for fun? Er, no. Not my textbooks, anyway :)

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - milk cartons, food wrappers. Placemats in fast food restaurants. In English and in French.

My first job at the theatre company was as an archivist, which I took as a mandate to read every piece of paper in every file I came across (instant institutional memory). That was an awesome four months.

I've gradually been reading more and more online, whether it's personal or work-related. And while it doesn't replace the feel of a book in the hand, it's easier to clean up after a click-through rampage on Wikipedia (though perhaps not as accurately informative) than it was to reshelve half my mother's reference bookcase after one of my childhood fact-finding missions.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Or do you always have a book or newspaper with you so the point is moot?

I pretty much always take a book with me when I have to go anywhere that might involve waiting (doctors' offices, mechanics, etc.). At home, I always read either a book or the paper while eating. If I'm visiting other people, I'll read whatever's there on the table—including cereal boxes and labels.

lately I've (sadly) been reading more fanfic and less printed material. One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions is to right the balance.

Yeah, me too. Except the fanfic is so good that I don't really want to cut back. What we really need is to expand the number of available (i.e., nonworking) hours in the day. Then we can read both!