Literature

Since my very first purchase of a book, I didn’t expect to have enough to build a library. One after one, the books started to pile up and eventually my collection started. Finding a place to store that collection was another thing. I didn’t have a bookshelf to put any of my books. For the longest time they were just sitting on or under the coffee table. I had room for them in my headboard but that would only fit the small books.

As of today, I have fifty four books in my library. Out of that fifty four, I have read and finished fourteen of them. I’ve started to read the other forty books but I never got a chance to finish them. Sometimes I would start reading a book but then the next day, I would pick up another one and start reading that one.

As much as I’d like to encourage people to read, I don’t quite trust lending out my book because people don’t like to take care of things that don’t belong to them. If I lend out a book, there’s a chance that it’ll be returned to me in pieces. Some of the books that I have, you couldn’t tell if I’ve read them because I try not to put a crease in the binding.

I’ve lend out a few books and I haven’t received them back yet because they’ve gotten lost somehow. I remember buying “The Religion War” by Scott Adams and “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova but I can’t seem to find those two books anywhere. I remember who I lent them out to but those people are saying that they’re returned it. If they have returned it then I must have lent it out again.

I’ve finished reading “The Religion War” and it was a really good book. It is also a rare book and I can’t seem to find it anywhere. When I bought it, it was on sale for $5.99 but it’s so rare now that the price has double.

I’ve started “The Historian” but I lost interest. The book was pretty thick and I only managed to read about half a chapter every night so it probably would have taken me a year to finish that book.

It would be nice to add those two books back to my collection but until I figure out who borrowed them, I won’t be seeing them again unless I buy another copy to add to my collection. For now, I am content with finally having a place to store my book collection. Sooner or later, I’ll find the time to finish every book on the shelf. I just have to make sure that I don’t buy new books before finish the old ones.

For someone who’s not in school anymore, I sure do a lot of reading. And it’s not the type of reading you do for academic purposes. This is just reading for pleasure. My book collection is starting to get larger and I’m slowly running out of shelf space. I’m going to have to clear up some of my old junk to make room for my ever growing collection. I might even have to buy a new bookshelf from Ikea to accommodate all my books.

With the addition of four new books, it brings up my total of unread books to 17, give or take a few. I know that I could have finished these books by now but I’ve just been preoccupied with work, errands and… Facebook. I could have easily finished reading a couple of the books by now but I’ve just been putting them aside while I do other useless things. Any book that contains three hundred pages or less can be read in a day but that all depends on the content. If the book is really good, I have a hard time putting it down. If the book starts off slow, I find myself reading a few pages and then a few pages there. That’s what I’m doing at the moment.

I’m in the process of finishing up “For One More Day” by Mitch Albom. This novel is about getting a second chance to go back and making right all the wrongs that you’ve done. I’m part way through the book but there hasn’t been much that is keeping me interested. Every time I pick up this book, I’m just reading a chapter at a time.

At the same time, I am also currently reading “Theatre of the Mind” by Jay Ingram. This book talks about consciousness and other stuff that the brain does. For example, memory. Let’s say that you’re at a beach on a warm summer day. The sun is shining brightly in the sky. There’s a nice calm breeze flowing through the air. You see people swimming, children’s playing and dogs barking. These are very descriptive information. If you’ve been through something like this, you can probably picture yourself being there. You can see the people, smell the beach and even feel the sand. Even though you’re not actually there, something in your memory is triggered to bring back those images. Anyhow, I’m not far into the book so I don’t know exactly what Ingram is trying to say. I just know that the first part of the book is a tad slow, as most introductions are.

The next two book I’ve received were gifts for my birthday. Well, one of the books was a gift, the other I bought with a gift card that I received for Christmas. My brother bought me “The Expected One” by Kathleen McGowan. It’s someone like “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. Everyone seems to know that I like that book so it seems as if they’re getting me anything related to that. The last book that my brother got me for my brother is still sitting on my bookshelf. I haven’t read much of that either, only a few pages. It is also similar to “The Da Vinci Code” but it’s NOT “The Da Vinci Code.”

The other book that I got is one that I chose myself, “The Worst Person in the World” by Keith Olbermann. If you do no know Keith Olbermann, you are missing out. He’s the host of MSNBC’s Countdown which is a newscast that covers national and international stories. Olbermann provides a fast paced commentary on the stories with a very strong opinion on the subject using very powerful words. Every word that comes out of his mouth are very articulate. I try to speak the way he does but I end up mumbling towards the end. The things that he says are probably the same things that most Americans are saying about the Bush administration. The comments that he makes about Bush and Bill O’Reilly are pretty funny.

If you like watching “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart or “The Colbert Report” with Stephen Colbert, I’m sure you’ll like “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann. I haven’t read the book yet but judging by the excerpt that I have read, it’s going to be a funny book. That’s if I find time to read it.

The third book is “From Black Rooms” by Stephen Woodworth. This is the fourth book of the “Violet Eyes” series that I’ve been collection. It’s about a woman who was born with violet eyes. She’s part of a special breed of human who have the power to communicate with the dead. When someone is killed, she is able to get in contact with them and find out who killed them. The first book of the series was interesting. The second book was okay. The third started to get a bit boring. I just hope the fourth will relight my interest in the novel.

The last book that I’ve purchase is “The Philosopher’s Handbook” by Stanley Rosen. This book looks into the lives of Western philosophers and gives a short introduction about them. The book is divided into six parts and discusses topics from social and political philosophy to art and culture to the philosophy of science. It sounded like an good read so I look forward to reading it.

The only time I get off from work is on the weekend. I don’t go out because I’m too tired and I can’t afford to go out so I can probably sit around and read. I’m hoping to catch up on my reading before the winter is over. That’s plenty of time, right?

After all the running around and searching for presents, I thought I’d be about done with the shopping. I’m not done yet just but I’m getting there. I thought that I had one more gift to buy but then other dates started popping into my head.

I made a visit to Coles to see if they had the book that I was looking for. I’ve been trying to get a hard cover copy of Theatre of the Mind by Jay Ingram but none of the stores had it in stock. The only place that I found it available was online. Coles was have a sales on where you buy three books and get the forth one free. Mind you, it’s doesn’t work exactly like the sale says. You get the cheapest of the four books for free.

I picked up Ingram’s book, Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille, Secrets of the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean and Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer along with a gift card for some friends. These books have been on my wish list on Amazon.ca, which by the way has been erased for some odd reason. I had about five or six book titles saved on there but it looks like something happened and data was lose. Anyway, since this sale was going on, I decided to pick them up now.

The new addition of books only adds to my collection of unread books. At the moment, I have eleven books that I need to finish reading. I don’t know why I keep buying books before finishing the previous one. I think these books will keep me busy for months.

When I got to the checkout desk, the worker on the cash asked if I had a membership card. I had one but I wasn’t sure if it was still good because on the website, it said that the card expired this month. It didn’t give a specific date so it could have already been expired. He informed me that with the club card, I would be saving even more if I used the club card on top of the sale.

The club card gave me discounts on the book plus there were coupons in one of their flyers that gave me $5 off each book. I would already be saving 10% off each book and another $5 by using the coupon. One of the books was a best seller so I received an additional 30% off that book.

Since my club card was going to expire he asked if I wanted to renew it today. I would save $10 if I renewed it in store rather than online. I was going to renew it online but if I’m saving money by doing it in store, I might as well.

I ended up saving $50.68 after everything was added up and taxed. That included the books, the gift card and the club card renewal. So basically, by making my purchase and renewing my card at the store, I ended up getting a free gift card. Or something close to the value of the gift card anyway.

Before leaving, the guy at the checkout desk asked me how many people these books were presents for. I had to tell him zero because they were for myself. The gift card was the present for the other person. These books were a present to me from myself.

After I was done at the book store, I headed on over to the library to stop of the Christmas card. Two of the guards were at the front desk while the other two were out and about. When they opened the card, they saw the $5 gift certificate and thought that it won’t last too long. Then that three other gift certificates slid out and surprised them.

Even though I’m not part of the security team any more, it still feels like I work with them. I pass through the library often enough to seem like I’m back to work there. Every time anyone sees me there, they keep asking if I’m back to work. I tell them that I’m already working there but under cover.

I didn’t stay at the library long because my parking was going to expire. When I exited the parking lot, I saw that I had about five minutes remaining. If it had expired, I would have had to pay an additional $1.25. Jackson Square is the only mall in town that doesn’t have free parking. It’s in the downtown core and should be the one that provides the most free parking. It’s no wonder there’s no business flow in the area.

My literature collection has grown substantially. The book case that I have in my room is actually being used as a book case instead of storage. I’m practically a library compared to my friends. When they need to borrow a book to read, they come to be instead of the library.

The following books are the ones that I am currently in the progress of reading. Some of them I’ve already started and some of them I’ve just glanced through. Chances are, when I’m done with one, I might have to restart the others because it’s been so long since I’ve read the beginning. Here they are, in no particular order.

• In Golden Blood
  Stephen Woodworth
  303 pages
• The Broker
  John Grisham
  422 pages
• America
  Jon Stewart
  227 pages
• The Historian
  Elizabeth Kostova
  642 page
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
  Bill Bryson
  624 pages
• The World Is Flat
  Thomas L. Friedman
  600 pages
• The Third Secret
  Steve Berry
  400 pages
• JPod
  Douglas Coupland
  516 pages
• The God Delusion
  Richard Dawkins
  404 pages
• For One More Day
  Mitch Albom
  208 pages
• Photography
  John Freeman
  288 pages
  
• Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide
  David D. Busch
  245 pages

That’s a list of twelve books containing over 4500 pages. That’s an average of 375 pages per book. The twelve books also average out to be about one book per month. So that means that I’m about ten months behind on my reading. I’ve managed to get a lot of reading done before because I spent a lot of time on the bus. Now that I’m driving to work, I barely have time to read during the commute. With work and other side projects along the way, I don’t know where I’ll find the time to read.

And on top of this, there’s also my monthly subscription to GQ and Maxim. Maxim doesn’t take long to read because I’m just looking at the pictures and stuff but GQ can take some time. Every issue of GQ varies in size. The last couple of issues have been quite bulky. Most of the pages mainly contain advertisement but I like to see what style is in.

Some time last year I started subscribing to GQ. I was interested in this magazine because I had just started focusing on my company at the time so I was seeing myself as a business man. I wanted that “GQ Look.” It’s synonymous with that classic cool and sophistication look. The magazine has articles on cultural stuff, celebrity profiles and style guides. Just recently, I renewed my subscription for another yet.

Earlier this morning, I received the September 2006 issues of GQ. This one is probably one of the thickest magazines I have. I thought the first issue that I received was big but this one is about an inch thick. You can probably knock someone out with this.

I flipped through it quickly to see what kind of articles they had in this month’s issue. I think I went through 85 pages before reaching the table of content. Between the cover and the table of content were whole bunches of advertisement. I think that GQ’s ideal reader would be someone who can probably afford to buy the stuff that they have advertised. The suit that Clive Owen is wearing in the picture costs $2,395, the shirt costs $450 and the silk tie costs $135. I can probably afford to buy the tie but I’m not going to spend that much money on a tie. I already have six pairs of ties that I hardly wear now so buying that would really be a waste of money.

As you flip through the magazine, you are still shown a lot of advertisement. Another twenty pages letter you finally hit the Letter from the Editor section. I like to read that once in a while to see what Jim Nelson has to say about this month’s issue. This month’s issue focused on the fall season. Nelson says that “fall, not spring, is about renewal, at least in terms of the important things in life, like the new TV season.”

On certain pages of the magazine are advertisements for cologne. Those pages are usually scent with a sample. Sometimes I open it and use it instead of wasting the cologne that I have but recently I left the samples in tact. When a friend comes over, he’ll go through a few issues of my magazines and he’ll even rip the page that has the cologne, just to smell it. I think he tries some of it too. I think this magazine made me buy one of the advertised cologne, Armani Black Code. When I purchase that cologne, every other designer had some cologne called Black but Armani’s was the one that I liked best. It’s a small black bottle that appears to be translucent but if you hold it up to a light, you can see the liquid inside. Right now, I have just over half a bottle. I don’t know how long that will last because my brothers like to steal my cologne.

It’s late in the night and I had just finished reading a book. I was down to a few pages so I wanted to finish it before going to bed. The book was “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom. It is a story about Mitch and his college professor Morrie Schwartz. After graduating from college Mitch was so busy with his own life that he lost touch with Morrie. One night, Mitch was watching television when a “Nightline” program aired. It showed Ted Koppel talking with Morrie, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and didn’t have long to live. After seeing this Mitch flew to Boston and paid a visit to his old mentor. This was the beginning of a series of weekly visits. This book details those weekly talks they had about life. They reflected on love, marriage, family, forgiveness and a whole bunch of other things.

One of the lessons that I remember most is this: “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” This was a lesson taught during their fourth Tuesday together when Mitch asked Morrie how he can be prepared for death. Morrie replied with a Buddhist philosophy about asking a bird on your shoulder if this is the day that you will die. Basically, this is a metaphor which means that death can come at any moment. Morrie’s quote reminds us that we can never know when exactly we’re going to die so we have to learn to appreciate our time on earth because one day, it will all be gone.

I found this book to be very interesting because of the lesson that is being taught during every meeting. Being young, I have yet to experience everything that life has to offer. Sometimes it takes the wisdom of others to motivate you into doing things better. This book tells a story about life as seen from the eyes of a dying man. It gives you a sense of what is important in life.

This book teaches us to live life to the fullest. Take the time to connect with those you love. Be observant with your surrounding and pay attention to the little details. That is what life is all about. It’s not about money, fame or power. Those are just illusions that you can do without. But if you were to live in a world without love, you would be living in a world with nothing.

This novel is by far, the best novel I’ve ever read. And now, it’s going to be a movie, which is going to be even better! I can’t wait to see it when it comes out in May 2006.

I’m sure that most of you have heard about The Da Vinci Code, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the pass couple years. This book has stirred up quite a few controversies. Lots of authors have profited by attacking the book and claiming that the theories in the book are false. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that, I mean, come on, it’s a novel, you can’t take the context seriously, it is fiction. If you want to say that this book is full of it, you might as well attack the story of the three little pigs. There’s nothing true about that. Have you ever seen three little piggies building a house. Heck, I can’t even do that. If I was to build a house, it’d be out of cardboard. But these piggies are building them out of straw and bricks and whatever the other material is.

For anyone who hasn’t read the book yet, you’re missing out. I was never into reading until I found this book. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. I was hook. After The Da Vinci Code, I went out and bought other books written by Dan Brown. And to tell you the truth, his other books were quite good as well. I have a collection of all of Dan Brown’s novel. If he writes any more books, I’ll be sure to grab that off the shelf too.

The Da Vinci Code tells a story about the hidden messages placed inside Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings. The most famous painting of all time, The Mona Lisa, is believed to have a hidden meaning in it. Scholars have been trying to figure out the emotion of Mona Lisa, at the time of the painting. She has this smile on her face but there’s something suspicious about it. Recently, scientists from the University of Amsterdam created a computer program to figure out what Mona Lisa was feeling. They concluded that Mona Lisa was “83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry.”

Another theory that others are saying is that the Mona Lisa is actually a self portrait of da Vinci himself. If you take his picture and place it on top of the Mona Lisa painting, you can fade in one picture and fade out the others and you’ll see the similarities in the facial structures. Try googling it if you want to see the animation of the two images.

The novel isn’t just about the hidden meanings of da Vinci’s work. It also talks about a secret society and a wars that’s been going on between the scientists and the church. Brown makes these stories seem very realistic. I would definitely recommend this book and I highly suggest you go out and grab a copy. I’d lend you my copy but lately, people haven’t been returning items they’ve borrowed from me.