One of my Favorite Blogs

I am obsessed with books. I am always reading a book. When I finish it. I know what I will read next. I've written a book and want to see it published. I have a wall of books in my living room, another bookcase of them in my study, rows of them on my desk and in my bedroom.  I have a Kindle and an iPad--because what if the battery runs down and the e-book I'm reading is inaccessible? When I fly, I always have my iPad and a"real" book because the iPad must be powered down during take off and landing.

Well, enough about books and me.

Read THIS.

Handsome, Dark... and fits in my purse

Say what you want about the feel of a "real" book. The smell of paper, the way it feels in your hands. You can keep your dead trees and sniff all the glue that your heart desires because I'm in love with Mr. Kindle. I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" on my Kindle, and after I "turned" the last page I went to "My Notes and Marks" to re-read my favorite parts. Things like,"This is what it means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heat that drives them to move all together. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten." Or, "The past is all we know of the future."
Imagine my surprise at the next item on the Kindle menu, "View Popular Highlights." Yes. The favorite passages of other readers who have enjoyed "The Lacuna" on Kindle. Everyone is connected to everyone else--in a good way. Or at least those of us who read a book on Kindle and like it enough to mark the sections that mean something to us. From the top ten of  the most popular highlighted passages, there is this: "The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know." And this: "Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down."

My daughter M. and I once shared a paperback copy of "The God of Small Things" by Arundati Roy. M. read it first, underlining liberally and then gave the book to me to read. I loved seeing her markings-- knowing what had moved her, which bits of prose had leapt off the page and into her heart. I made my own marks and notes as I read, and then she read the book again, taking into consideration what I had noted. Reading as dialogue. Reading as love of a book and love of a person who loves the same book.
Okay, so maybe my experience today with my Kindle doesn't have quite the same depth as that. But the sea of book-love with Mr. Kindle is wider and has more fish. As both a reader and a writer, I have to say it's pretty big stuff to feel the ripple of a beloved writer's words and know immediately that other readers, even anonymous ones, are being encircled by those ripples too.

"If you want to be me, be me. And if you want to be you, be you..."

I legally changed my name in July of '08. The name change came with the final decree of divorce. Then came implementing that change. An endless litany of dentist, doctors, hairdresser, chiropractor, credit card companies, friends, etc. etc. I never got around to Amazon. Mr. Ex & I used the same Amazon account when we were together, and even after the split when I changed the password and entered my new credit card numbers for one-click shopping, I let the masquerade continue. "Hello, Mr. Ex," it would say as soon as I went to the site. It annoyed me. "Hello Barnes & Noble" I'd mutter--or "Hi there, Borders." But I thought it would be complicated to change it & I didn't want to lose whatever might be stored in my history.
Until.....last night when I bought a Kindle. I've been dreaming of a Kindle since I first heard about them & I finally took the leap. This morning I got the confirmation email and went to my Kindle page on Amazon to see that my  Kindle was called "Mr. Ex's" Kindle. 
Not anymore.
It's easy. Go to the settings page and change your name. Anyone could do it. It seems to me that as far as Amazon cares, the name on the account could be Paris France or Bimbo Dumas--or Dante or Homer.  Indulge your fantasies.


Title from Cat Stevens' lyrics from his song "If You Want to Sing Out."