Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
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I have decided to do a lot more re-reading of books this year.
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Besides the fact that some books are comfort books and are good to re-read for that alone, and the fact that I have not read some good books for over fifty years which will make them seem new, there is the question of price. I can't go to the library anymore for mobility problems and also because I have to rush to read a book and I just don't work like that now. My little library also can't offer the kinds of books I really like. I can get some books used at Barnes & Noble and that is good. I will also have to learn to wait for books to change into paperbacks. I can do that.
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It seems as if it was just in the last few months that prices skyrocketed. I have a card at B&N that gives me a break and they have coupons for money off and free shipping that helps. But it seems to me that the prices went up 8-10 dollars which is a huge leap.
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If I thought the authors were being better paid, it would not bother me so much. If I thought it was the only way bookstores could stay in business, it would make a difference. But for right now it is discouraging. I like to support authors, but I admit that I am going to do more re-reading these next few months than ever before. I just looked up two new books from authors I have read before and each hardback was $29.95. Wow!
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So what books would you re-read from your shelves?
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I am seriously thinking about Cadfael in the near future and maybe Tales of Sector General by James White. But for now, I do have some books on my TBR pile that are calling my name and I am grateful for that.
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Diaries of the Week:
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Write On! Some help from a subway escalator.
SensibleShoes
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1754620#comment_69786389
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$15,000 matching donation challenge for Hill Country Ride for AIDS - match has been met
anotherdemocrat
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/5/1754485/--15-000-matching-donation-challenge-for-Hill-Country-Ride-for-AIDS
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Updated: The Full Kos Katalogue!
By Avilyn
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/7/1722302/-Updated-The-Full-Kos-Katalogue
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from Magnifico’s OND Diary: www.dailykos.com/...
How cool is this?
Mysterious sunstones in medieval Viking texts could really have worked
When the Vikings first sailed to Greenland in the late 10th century, they didn’t have compasses to guide them; that technology wouldn’t reach Europe until the late 16th century. So how did they do it? A new computer simulation says an unusual method mentioned in an eight- or nine-hundred-year-old Icelandic saga would have been precise enough to get Viking ships safely to Greenland.
“The Viking legends (so-called sagas) refer to mysterious tools, sunstones, with which they could determine the position of the invisible Sun in cloudy or foggy weather,” archaeologist Gabor Horvath told Ars Technica…
Normally, if you look through a calcite crystal, you see double. But when you line the crystal up at a right angle to the light, the double image resolves into a single point. A set of 2011 experiments showed that looking through a calcite crystal could work out the direction of the Sun and, thus, which direction is west, to within a few degrees even under twilight conditions. And a new study says that Vikings could have reliably found their way across 1,600 miles of ocean from Norway to Greenland using only sunstones to navigate.
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Poll Quotations:
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