Tag: books

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Banned Books

I confess, when I was young it was not only OKAY to read books, but they were part of our school studies. We were encouraged to read everything.

Imagine that, we could read whatever we wanted.

And we did.

I remember books and the subsequent classroom discussions of them that had a huge impact on me. That made me THINK.

That is what the written word does. Makes you think.

Some of those books would never be in schools today. In Cold Blood. Catcher in the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. Flowers for Algernon. Twelve Angry Men. Romeo and Juliet (Our teacher even took us to the theatre to watch Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, where, gasp, there was brief nudity).

The list is extensive. I was fortunate to have teachers not only present us with these, but discuss them as well, and let us decide for ourselves what we like or don’t like.

My parents had a huge library of books and none were off limits to me, from the day I could read. I read Benton’s Row. A Clockwork Orange. Valley of the Dolls. There were also lots of non-fiction in my house, Time Life Books, Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, and a plethora of physics, mechanics, biology.

At lunch time at school I used to read automotive mechanics. Can you imagine me doing that today?

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Magazine Subscriptions

There is something about a printed page, holding a book or magazine in your hands and turning the pages, that is magical. That is why I am surrounded by books and magazines most of the time.

I have several magazine subscriptions and I usually read them cover to cover.

There is just one thing that is slightly annoying, that I have been bothered by for decades but never mentioned.

It is this:

Every 4 or so months I get this, a notice of urgency, that my subscription is about to expire and I need to renew, which is clearly not the case (I circled the expiry date). I signed up at the time for a 2 year subscription, and I keep track of this for a good reason. They are hoping I forget and send them more money, which I have to admit, I did in the past, and I might add, the new renewal date did not reflect the additional money I sent. It was not moved forward.

The expiry date is there, but if you are rushed, or enthused by how much you will save today, (in the above case it was the unbelievable amount of $251.75 so I’d only have to pay $17.95), you’d gleefully send them another cheque. It is easy to lose track of your subscriptions.

I know, a very petty thing to be annoyed with, but it is my Blog!

On a happier note, I just published another photobook to usher in winter. Very unusual for me to celebrate cold weather. Enjoy!

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A Thousand Pictures

One of the best ways to preserve photographs is to create photobooks.  It is also one of the most expensive.  However, people are more receptive to look at your work in a book than a photo album or heaven forbid, a slide show.  Nothing can chill a heart faster than “Let’s look at slides of my last vacation!”, unless of course, you signed up for a guided tour beforehand.

In the 70’s if you saw someone haul out the 500 lb. slide projector after dinner you were in big trouble.  Worse, your Mother dusts off the album of you in your diapers and plops down beside your beau.  Yipes!

A picture is worth a thousand words, but for some, a thousand pictures is worth only one word.

Monty Python had a fabulous take on this: “Here’s Ted beside the house…and there’s Ted in front of the house, and oh, look!  There’s Ted behind the house…” while the captive audience tears up and throws each handed picture away.

One of my Mothers favourite photo albums was pictures of people she went on a trip with to Portugal.  She couldn’t remember who they were, she was just happy to have had so many friends at once!  Mom loved to be adored, she was a bit of a diva.

I loved a photobook a friend did of her trip to Africa.  It was so good I requested some of the photo’s for myself.  Others however bring their books out as bragging rights to exotic places I’ll never get to see.

Perhaps the worst bragging rights belongs to Professionals, who being paid to give a talk on their chosen profession, begin the talk with slides of their pregnant wife.  Eeewww!

The absolute worse case belongs to a sales rep who came to our business with an album of his wife giving birth.  In colour.  He insisted we look at every picture (and there were a lot) while he gave us a running commentary.  Ugh!

And then there was the man who dropped off a photo album for me at my office, which contained pictures of women in bondage.  Sorry – but that did not go unpunished, I reported him.

So come to think of it, all my photo’s of Sam, sunsets, forests, lakes and the odd awful selfie don’t seem so bad after all.  I won’t make you look at all of them.  Maybe, just one….or two…