Book Nook Cafe discussion

Neat, Larry.

I wonder, do many of us remember the first used book we bought from Amazon? Mine was Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, written by Walter J. Ong. I had been looking for it several years, hoping to look at it before purchasing. The book is about the way human thought altered as societies switches from storytelling (myths and such) to learning by sight (written ways). Interesting book.

I haven't ordered many books online but this first i recall.

madrano wrote: "Neat, Larry.

I wonder, do many of us remember the first used book we bought from Amazon? Mine was Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, written by [author:Walter J. O..."

I do like how Amazon lets us look back at our earlier purchases. We have been trying to move away from Amazon for a lot of our purchases. Amazon makes it so easy to buy from them, but for food and drink orders like King Arthur and Republic of Tea, their shipping has gotten so good that buying directly from the source is better for us. Same thing for some clothing. But for used books, I still turn to Amazon first, knowing that the books are coming from third party companies.

madrano wrote: "Neat, Larry.

I wonder, do many of us remember the first used book we bought from Amazon? Mine was Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, written by [author:Walter J. O..."

I think we read that together on AOL.

Quite likely, Alias. I rather wish i'd made a column on my Excel chart to denote where i heard of the title & with whom (if anyone), i read it. Who knew we'd be book pals so many years? I'm delighted, of course, that we are!

Larry, same here, i know i can turn to Amazon for used books that way. My last order, however, came from ABE books, which impressed me by their speed. Only one of the three books took longer than 2 days to arrive.

To be honest, however, i just don't order much online. Actually, we don't even shop much at all. What on earth that says about us, i'd rather not speculate. :-)

I don't order a lot of books anymore, used or new. However, I have had good success with used books sold on Amazon. I try to look for books that are listed as "shipped from Amazon". I also only purchase ones that are good with Prime, so no shipping charge.

Good money saving tip, Alias.

I work at the library and do circulation but came in as part of the magazine team which had 4 people at one time. I am the last of the magazine staff but I also do book repair and process books. Just got notified that a half dozen popular magazines are going online only. It is so sad to me that magazines (the hard copies) probably will eventually be online only. Nothing I can do about it!

That is sad Julie. I love to read magazines but to buy them individually is crazy expensive. Getting a subscription seems the only way to go.

I currently get National Geographic because it was only $10 for the digital edition. While convenient, I prefer the paper edition.

With Amazon Prime I can also read some digital magazines. However, for some reason I haven't taken advantage of that.

Overdrive offers magazines for one of my online magazines. I tried one and just felt dissatisfied. It's quite possible that we will learn to adapt, as some of us have for eBooks. However, one of the things i like about paper editions is the ability to rip out articles or photos i like. If i do that electronically, it enters the black hole that is my External Hard Drive, seldom to be run across again.

Julie, your news saddens me.

On the other hand...my 95 year old mother-in-law has memory issues. When magazine publishers send her renewal notices, she reorders. Presently HGTV will be sending her magazines until 2025. This is wrong. We've contacted them, to no avail. Last month she sent in SIX checks to them! Sadly, her children decided to take the checkbook away from her now.

And still, this news is unfortunate for many of us. As a teenager, my bedroom wall was papered with magazine articles and photos. What will they do???

Finally, your post is timely, Julie, because yesterday i read an article from a 1974 National Geographic magazine. It was about canal boating in the UK and available waterways. Knowing things have improved since then was neat to think about. It was also neat because those magazines were my husband's yearly Christmas gift from my Dad, begun when Dan was in Vietnam.

Yes, this is sad news and i wonder how people who never knew about paper editions (in the future) will understand movies with walls papered with cut outs.

*sigh*

madrano wrote: We've contacted them, to no avail...."

Wow.... That is just wrong.

I subscribe to the online edition of the NY Times. I know I read a lot more of the paper when I got the paper edition.

Maybe younger people who grew up in the digital age will have no issue with digital media.

I already have digital issues of Nat. Geo that I haven't even looked at. For me, getting a magazine in the mail was fun and I almost always at least glanced quickly through it as soon as it arrived.

For years, Prevention magazine was my subway magazine as it fit neatly into my purse. It used to be an inexpensive magazine then all the sudden the prices tripled and I didn't renew.

When I was younger I used to read Cosmo, Allure and those types of magazine cover to cover.

For food I used to get Cooking Light and Vegetarian Times.

I also used to get Shambala Sun (Buddhist magazine)

For decades my dad subscribed to Reader's Digest. I loved that vocabulary quiz.

I sometimes think about getting Vanity Fair again.

Alias, you have a healthier magazine history than i do. In the past we've subscribed to each of the news magazines (Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report), leaving the first two for their lack of balance in presenting ideas and the last because we moved to an area with very good newspapers.

Others either died or became too expensive--1001 Decorating Ideas, Apartment Living, Organic Gardening, a Canadian sort of organic living, called Harrowsmith and Ms. There may have been others but we didn't read/use them enough to remember now.

The handy thing about magazines, imo, is that you see them in your house and pick them up to read at odd minutes. With an online version, there will be no reminder. Let's face it, sometimes it was the stacks of magazines which motivated me to get reading! Online? No clutter, no read.

Alias Reader wrote: "I subscribe to the online edition of the NY Times. I know I read a lot more of the paper when I got the paper edition.

Maybe younger people who grew up in the digital age will have no issue with ..."

Prevention magazine went ad less so that was why their price went up.

I think I'm down to three paper magazines (the two from AARP and The Sun (I guess you could call it a countercultural monthly, but I'm not sure what is countercultural these days)). But Apple News+ gives me access to another 300 magazines and Libby gives me access to another 3,600. Just figuring out what to read next is my biggest problem.

Julie wrote:
Prevention magazine went ad less so that was why their price went up."

Yes. For me that ads were mostly all health related so I didn't mind them and often found new products I was interested in.

Larry wrote: Libby gives me access to another 3,600..."

I never thought of using Libby for magazines. Thanks, Larry. I'll have to check that out.

I put "magazines" in the search but I don't seem to get the Libby magazine list you mentioned. Maybe my library doesn't pay for it. :(

Alias Reader wrote: "Larry wrote: Libby gives me access to another 3,600..."

I never thought of using Libby for magazines. Thanks, Larry. I'll have to check that out.

I put "magazines" in the search but I don't seem to get the Libby magazine list you mentioned. Maybe my library doesn't pay for it...."

Alias, sometimes it's a little complicated. I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, and we've been able to borrow magazines online for perhaps five years ... at first through the RBDigital app and then about a year ago through Libby. And then about four months ago, the Libby app stopped working for magazines ... what happened was the all the public libraries in Virginia turned over the magazine subscriptions through Libby to the Library of Virginia (based in Richmond). It wasn't apparent for a few weeks that that was what had happened, until the Fairfax County Public Library put it up on their website and explained that any patron of a county library automatically could borrow magazines by registering with the Library of Virginia (using the same card number as they use with their county library). I'm explaining all this because your own NYC library may have a similar relationship with another library.

Its definitely worth asking a reference librarian. For us, the title list is immense ... again about 3,600 titles and there is no limit on how many periodical you can checked out and there is no wait list.

The other competitor to Libby for magazines is Flipster. I think that the Brooklyn Public Library uses Flipster. Flipster has only 1,300 periodicals available ... :-)

That thing about paying for a digital resource is a real problem. I know that several of the NYC public library systems recently dropped Kanopy (for borrowing films) because of the cost. And just a few weeks ago, Fairfax County Public Library just started offering it. We watched our first film today with it. I hope we get to keep it.

This is the flip side of our computer/'net days--all those options! I'm glad folks here are sharing about them. I knew nothing.

Larry, thank you so much for explaining this to me. I see my Brooklyn Library does have Flipster ! And Flipster works on my Kindle Fire. :)

You made my day. Thank you !

Alias Reader wrote: "Larry, thank you so much for explaining this to me. I see my Brooklyn Library does have Flipster ! And Flipster works on my Kindle Fire. :)

You made my day. Thank you !"

That's great, Alias!

The evolution of all these digital resources is great and and even a little terrible at the same time. I love having books and periodicals available on a device that can be carried around easily. That's great. I don't like how things constantly change. I started reading Harper's Magazine about 50 years ago. It was great in my earlier decades and still is good but just good. Accessing it was easy for years ... just wait for it to land in my physical mailbox and then read the paper copy. And then I subscribed to it so that I had a paper copy and a digital copy ... with access to the digital archives going back to the earliest days of the magazine (all the way back to 1850), which I rarely used. And then I switched to a digital subscription through Zinio ... And then I switched to getting it through my library with the RBDigital app (which actually used the Zinio platform so that a copy of Harper's Magazine could be read on Zinio along with a few magazines that I paid for through Zinio.

And then OverDrive bought RBDigital ... and now the company that owns both OverDrive and Libby is essentially phasing out the former in favor of the latter. And this last week Harper's Magazine discontinued access to its magazine through Libby (and also OverDrive). I'll probably just stop reading Harper's Magazine. Over the last two decades, I've come to enjoy Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and the New York Review if Books much more anyway.

This digital world is not for the faint at heart. You never know what you will find ... you never know what you might be enjoying today may be gone tomorrow. But it's not really cause for despair. Because, whatever happens, THERE WILL BE MORE TOMORROW.

Alias Reader wrote: "Larry, thank you so much for explaining this to me. I see my Brooklyn Library does have Flipster ! And Flipster works on my Kindle Fire. :)

You made my day. Thank you !"

Another comment about device-specific content. Every day after I make my first cup of coffee, I sit down, pick up my Kindle Fire and read the comics in the Washington Post. The Washington Post has two apps for the Kindle Fire ... and it's the blue app that I use ... not the black app, which will give you access to an exact image of the paper newspaper.

The comics on the blue WaPo app Kindle fire are different from the comics on the Washington Post app on an iPad which are different from the comics on the Kindle Fire black app on the (Kindle Fire or the iPad) which are different from the comics on the digital access Washington Post website on a computer or iMac. I know ... it's hard to keep all that straight. what we have lost though is commonality of experience ... and my example is just one very odd example of that.

Larry, your two posts about our digital world and varied experiences explains much. My family is all online but sometimes when we share a site, we relate different experiences. We couldn't figure it out, but your color app info helps much. Thanks for that.

Your attitude is terrific regarding Harper's. There is so much more "out there", which we can see as an opportunity when one resource is lost. Yet, what a loss. I really would have liked looking at very old issues of magazines...and all at your fingertips via the 'Net. Alas, probably more searching will yield much.

Thank you for both posts. I recall about a decade ago folks were trying to figure out what they previously did with all the time they now spent on their computers. (This was before so many former-print publications were online.) This is such a Brave New World and it's up to us to decide what we'll do with it.

Sadhguru's thought about suffering our memory and imagination is true. Thoughtful quote, thanks.

madrano wrote: "Larry, your two posts about our digital world and varied experiences explains much. My family is all online but sometimes when we share a site, we relate different experiences. We couldn't figure i..."

I get Bruce Feiler's newsletter twice a week. Feiler has written about teaching in Japan (Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan, university education at Oxford and Cambridge (Looking for Class, the circusUnder the Big Top, the changing Nashville experience Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes, and the Changing Face of Nashville, and religion in the Middle East Where God Was Born. In this week's newsletter he explores his concerns about the rapidly dropping viewing audience for the SuperBowl as a loss in shared experience (I don't think he cares that much about the SuperBowl as a game). I think he's on to something. Here's a link to that newsletter: https://brucefeiler.bulletin.com/the-...

I think that this desire for shared experiences is why we come together here (in this book group on GoodReads) and elsewhere. Among other things, it's to share our excitement about or even dislike for a book, comment on a poem that's been posted, and express our feelings for one another. In these pandemic days, it's even more important to have shared experiences.

Larry wrote: "
And then OverDrive bought RBDigital ... and now the company that owns both OverDrive and Libby is essentially phasing out the former in favor of the latter..."

I know ! I love OverDrive. It's easy and I'm familiar with it. I also have Libby. However, I prefer OverDrive.

Larry wrote: what we have lost though is commonality of experience ... and my example is just one very odd example of that..."

Don't even get me started on that. From the news we consume to the music we listen to, we are all in our own little silo. :(

madrano wrote: " I really would have liked looking at very old issues of magazines...and all at your fingertips via the 'Net. Alas, probably more searching will yield much."

When we went to visit my niece at Vassar college years ago, we also looked at their beautiful library. I recall that they had in binders decades old magazines. We loved looking at the advertisements and the prices that things sold for back in the day.

With everything going online now, I guess that experience is lost. I know they probably have the info online, but it's just not the same. Maybe for people who grow up in the digital age they will be fine with it and will be able to point out all the benefits of which I am sure there are many.

The Waves--- Virginia Woolf

“Libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide - between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence.”
— Bella Bathurst

Bella Bathurst

madrano wrote: "Larry, your two posts about our digital world and varied experiences explains much. My family is all online but sometimes when we share a site, we relate different experiences. We couldn't figure i..."

Our online experience has been more than pretty good for us. Almost every morning for about 30 minutes, we FaceTime with our younger granddaughter Cessy who has autism. She is extremely verbal and does most of the talking. And then every evening we check in again with her and then spend about 30 minutes on FaceTime with our older granddaughter as she draws or paints ... At the end of each FaceTime session, Ella will show us what she has created. Is it as good as being in the same room with them? Of course not. But it's just great as it is.

We connect to other friends in similar ways.

And starting this week, we're going to be in a weekly Zoom session with Rick Steves. We've already registered for the next four weeks. Here's the link for anyone who may want to join us.

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tip...

Like E.M. Forster said, "Only Connect!"

That is very nice that you can connect with your grandkids that way.

Rick Steves.... very cool. I always enjoyed his PBS shows.

Larry wrote: "In this week's newsletter he explores his concerns about the rapidly dropping viewing audience for the SuperBowl as a loss in shared experience (I don't think he cares that much about the SuperBowl as a game). I think he's on to something. ..."

I wonder if this is true in a sense. Dropping viewing audience could well mean that there is just more "out there" to draw those with less generic taste. I notice NBC has the rights to both the Bowl & the Olympics, which led me to wonder which would win if they were offered live opposite each other.

Still, i see your point. Is that why we gather when a house is on fire or there is a car accident or it's a beautiful sunset? Or is that too small a group? You mentioned this online book group & i am glad we share this experience, as i know few who read much at all.

I'm reminded of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Darmok", in which the alien species speaks in metaphors. At the time, we noted that this could be done today (up to a point). For instance, "Tsunami at Sendai" or "Armstrong planting flag" could stand for much, but one would have to be of a generation which witnessed it.

ANYway, i digress. For myself, i'm glad the Super Bowl numbers are down. In my mind's eye, more & more people are reading books instead. LOL!

And i want to connect this to the Rick Steves link. First of all, thanks, i knew nothing about these. Secondly, is this, in fact, a sort of shared experience? Not the watching, necessarily, but viewing as a group places others in the group may or may not have visited? That i can get into easier. :-)

Finally, how neat that you can visit with your grandchildren via the internet. How i wish my parents & in-laws could have done the same. You will be a part of their lives & memories, which is a gift to them.

Alias, thank you for the pleasure of the Woolf quote. I couldn't agree more.

Larry wrote: In this week's newsletter he explores his concerns about the rapidly dropping viewing audience for the SuperBowl as a loss in shared experience (I don't think he cares that much about the SuperBowl as a game). I think he's on to something. Here's a link to that newsletter:.."

Thanks for the heads-up on the newsletter.

Just playing devils advocate here.

Possibly Gen Z has shared experiences around other activities.

Personally, having a shared experience around advertising/ consuming is not something I care about or want to encourage. I never got the the big deal about the ads.

Academy awards. Maybe the lack of interest is that these are not the movies a Gen Z is going to theaters to see. Also the last few years I don't know many who going into movie theaters. Add in the rising cost of movies. With streaming now, I wonder if this is how many will now watch movies.

As to the music, again maybe the half time show performers are not the performers Gen Z listens to or the style of the half time show looks old fashion to them.

I never equated football with patriotism. I used to watch football until my team the NY Jets move to NJ. Nope... could not root for a NJ team and never watched again.

"Two new books published this month alone, The Next Civil War and How Civil Wars Start, openly imagine armed conflict within our own borders."
I will put these two on my TBR list. Interesting I was just listening to a new to me podcast, The Bulwark, the other day, and they mentioned a coming civil war.

Thanks !

Good food for thought and discussion.

Naturally, i awoke at 5 AM with the thought, "Wasn't COVID a shared experience?" Yup, twas. What's interesting to me is that he seems to equate shared experiences with patriotism. This isn't what i think of when i think of shared experiences at all. I think a moment of shared humanity.

As for his contention that the Super Bowl was one such event, it's hard to bemoan it's loss when the team owners are the ones who appear to have killed it. The outrageous price of tickets (along with accompanying food, parking, merchandise) alone deterred our family from attending games, so that watching on tv became less interesting because there was no in-person connection.

I really think Alias hit the nail on its head when she said it's likely Gen Z has other activities as its shared experience. TikTok, for instance, could be viewed as one, i think. Not sure about that, only the fact that i wouldn't know.

Very good quote from Judy Blume. How true this is. Although, i must add that i felt this way in school, so many of us learn this too early to ever develop our creativity.

Larry, i wanted to add that your post and the ensuing discussion of it clearly caught our attention. That we disagree is part of the fun & exploration. No offense intended, if it seems that way. :-)

I blamed the owners of teams upthread but the truth is that television did its share, too. Pre-game coverage today began here at noon, for a 5 PM game! And folks will watch. Probably more so if your team is playing. The networks lost fans like my husband and brother due to that overkill on pre-game.

On the other hand, was there a talk show this morning which didn't guess which team would win or declare their favorites. The numbers may be down, but i wouldn't make a big case of it. (Of course, i can say that because it feels like a personal victory to me. Maybe "my" victory can be a new Shared Experience?)

"Larry, i wanted to add that your post and the ensuing discussion of it clearly caught our attention. That we disagree is part of the fun & exploration. No offense intended, if it seems that way. :-)"

Deb and Alias, I agree with you both about football more than I disagree. Very little is lost by the viewing numbers being down. I almost totally gave up on watching football about four or five years ago ... the brain injuries were the major factor. I do watch it now a little ... and just view it as entertainment (pretty dangerous entertainment I admit) enjoying individual games and not really caring about who wins.

I do care much more about that shared experience aspect and the slow reduction of these kind of experiences in American society. It's worked itself out in a number of different ways. I know that the sociologist Robert Putnam explored how increasingly Americans were moving toward solitary pursuits in his Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, but he wasn't totally pessimistic about the broad trends there.

Larry wrote: "". I know that the sociologist Robert Putnam explored how increasingly Americans were moving toward solitary pursuits in his Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, but he wasn't totally pessimistic about the broad trends there."

Excellent point ! I've had that book on my TBR list forever. When it was published there was so much talk about it, I almost felt like I read it. :)

Larry, these discussions have been a lot of fun. I hope when I get the next newsletter (I subscribed) if it's of interest we can post it in the General Conversation thread so maybe more people see it and hopefully join in. I don't know that many read this quote thread.

Thanks for a very interesting topic. And thanks for reminding me to read Bowling Alone. I think as the years pass it seems more and more relevant.

Larry wrote: "It's worked itself out in a number of different ways. I know that the sociologist Robert Putnam explored how increasingly Americans were moving toward solitary pursuits in his Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, but he wasn't totally pessimistic about the broad trends there.

I wonder if covid exacerbated the trend. It seems more people were reading if book sales are any indication. That is generally a solitary endeavor. So I guess it's all not bad.

I bet professor Neil Postman would have had insightful comments. I loved his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Though it was published in 1985. So it was before internet and to some degree cable news took off and quite dated. Still, I think it is worth reading.

Alias Reader wrote: "I wonder if covid exacerbated the trend. It seems more people were reading if book sales are any indication. That is generally a solitary endeavor. So I guess it's all not bad. ..."

When Larry first posted about this, i appreciated his comment about Book Nook Cafe being a shared experience. It's something i hadn't examined but it struck a chord with me. Most my life i've been that lone reading wolf, so to have others reviewing and discussing books, expanding the possibilities for us has been a marvel. Don't start me crying!

madrano wrote:When Larry first posted about this, i appreciated his comment about Book Nook Cafe being a shared experience. It's something i hadn't examined but it struck a chord with me. Most my life i've been that lone reading wolf, so to have others reviewing and discussing books, expanding the possibilities for us has been a marvel. Don't start me crying!.."

A very true sentiment, Larry. Thank you !

I saw a poll today in USA Today newspaper which said 55% of the people with romantic partners do not celebrate Valentine's Day because it has become too commercialized. Count this old married couple in that group. To be fair, we wish one another a good V-Day but there are no exchanges of gifts or cards. It used to be a charming day, then $$$ took over.

And i'll add i have felt this way about Mother's Day, et al, as well. And the Super Bowl, as we've mentioned upthread. LOL!

Btw, as i wrote this post, guess what my DH said? You guessed it, "Happy Valentine's Day."

And so i wish each of you a day where you feel the love of the Universe heading toward you.

I think Valentines day can be a nice reminder to remember loved ones and friends how much they mean to you. No gift necessary.
Sometimes we all need a gentle reminder.

madrano wrote:And so i wish each of you a day where you feel the love of the Universe heading toward you"

What a lovely sentiment. Same back at you, deb, and all of our Book Nook members. 💜

Larry wrote: Post #75

I get Bruce Feiler's newsletter twice a week. Feiler has written about teaching in Japan (Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan, university education at Oxford and Cambridge (Looking for Class, the circusUnder the Big Top, the changing Nashville experience Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes, and the Changing Face of Nashville, and religion in the Middle East Where God Was Born. In this week's newsletter he explores his concerns about the rapidly dropping viewing audience for the SuperBowl as a loss in shared experience (I don't think he cares that much about the SuperBowl as a game). I think he's on to something. Here's a link to that newsletter: https://brucefeiler.bulletin.com/the-...."

Larry, just wanted to say I received my first newsletter.
and also an email giving me back issues.

Thank you !

I've had his Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses on my TBR for ages. Maybe this will motivate me to finally read it !