The end of an Era

I know that you Americans are busy with starting or ending Mother day lunches so of course wont have time to read this until I am in bed. But its time for my pity party...

Its official, I can't fit in any more books in to my office/study. I now have brick and floorboard shelves between rows of IKEA bookshelves with books stacked on the top of any free shelf roof. Valuable book space is taken up with work files and boxes. I did suggest that I could give up work to read more books and the wife go full time instead. Call me a new age man but I did pick up a certain coolness with the idea. I think the thrown tea gave it away. Likewise, the idea that we switch the study/office with the main bedroom may not have gone down well. I had a simple solution: get a smaller bed and downsize the clothes to a single under the bed trolley-drawer. I couldn't hear all the answer because of the screams, I did catch ...mentally ill...hoarder...grounds for divorce. So what do you think, a runner or not?

Assuming that the lottery isn't going to come up (need to start doing it for a start!, I want to switch my focus from swapping books** to reading and reviewing them. For RISI it means only responding if asked and for Bookmooch it means only mooching if the book appears in the UK. I am also weeding out my swap stock that is down to 4 banana boxes (it was 27!). The intention is to weed this out to say one box, which is I top up with my non-keeper reads because I still intend to build up the wishlists...well may still come across a must have.

In addition, I am now getting book requests directly from authors to review their books some of which are self-publishers so more signs of the changing book market. With this change of focus in mind I came across an interesting site, its called the The Sunday Salon:

Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book.

Of course I have a dream...digitalize my books and store them either on a online server or in a memory stick for e-book reading...60's white space minimalism come back all is forgiven

**Combining the RISI and Bookmooch swaps I have exchanged and received over 1000 books in 18 months