www.bookins.com is a website that I highly recommend for receiving used books via the usps on a regular basis, if you are so inclined. It is free to sign up and to send used books elsewhere. You only pay for receiving books, a flat rate of $4.49. I usually recieve a book a week and send off a good many to rack up points. In order to receive a book, you must have enough points. Each book is rated a certain amount of points that you earn once your used book arrives at its destination. For the most part, the quality is good and there is no hassle at all. Every time a book comes, I save the bubble mailer and reuse it so there is no extra cost to me. If you decide to use this site at any time, let me know so I can refer you and earn points that way. Awesome!
Holiday Reading Monday, Dec 31 2007
Reading 1:36 am
Well, I feel as though I should write a little bit about what I am reading these days. I am obsessing a little over Orhan Pamuk, especially excited that he is a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. I know, I know, that’s exciting stuff. I am reading an earlier novel called The New Life. It’s a bit strange, but in that way that every word is beautifully strange. I swear, last night my heart rate went up just from the words I was reading. My reaction was interesting, but not uncommon while reading those Pamuk words. Probably even better in Turkish. Let me try to find an excerpt that will show you what I mean.
“That night I read the book once more, submitting to it, pleading to be swept away. I read it with reverence. New realms, new beings, new images appeared before me. I envisioned clouds of fire, oceans of darkness, purple trees, crimson breakers.”
And also this:
“My whole life was changed after reading the book,” I said. “The room, the house, the world where I lived ceased to be mine, making me feel as through I have no domicile. I first saw the book in your hand; so you too must have read it. Tell me about the world you traveled to and back. Tell me what I must do to set foot in that world. Give me an explanation as to why we are still here. Tell me how the new world can be as familiar as my home and yet my home as strange as the new world.”
You see, the narrator saw a young woman with a book, saw it at a sidewalk book seller on the way home, and bought it out of curiosity. Well, he reads this book (we never really know what is in it, which is starting to be exasperating) and is now searching for the world, and people are out to kill him for another unknown reason. The interesting thing is that the one person who has actually made it into the book-world warns the narrator that it is hell, that people beat you up and try to kill you and, above all, that the world does not even exist. It is only a book. I’m not even halfway done with this book. See? Isn’t Pamuk wondrous?
Well, I have applied to Simmons and Pratt. More news as it becomes available. I have also ordered a moleskine to take more book notes in. I will also post up my end of year assessment of books read, probably Wednesday. I haven’t had a chance to look it over. Meanwhile, I have alphabatized my bookshelves and written them all up on the computer. It took almost 8 hours, but it looks alright.
All for now,
Jessica
