Tag Archives: reading

#50by50ish #46 – Purging some of my library

The PolyBlog
August 10 2019

My #50by50 years have come and gone, both the lead up and the bonus time when I was actually 50. I’m now 51, and there are a couple of items that I started during the period that I haven’t written up yet. One of those was a commitment to purging some books from my collection. To be honest, I have no idea how many books I have in the basement. My educated guess is somewhere between 1500 and 2500. A huge range I know, and a large number of books. I’ve held on to them over the years, and they … Continue reading →

A PolyWogg Reading Challenge for 2019

The PolyBlog
December 30 2018

I have been wanting to do a reading challenge for some time now, and each year I think I’m going to do the Good Reads one (with a 50 book pledge, for instance). But I feel the approach of just counting books is “off” somehow as a raw number isn’t really what I’m talking about. Would I feel twice as good if I read 50 books instead of 25? What about classics, should I only be counting classics? Is there a way to somehow add gamification to the mix? Or when it comes right down to it, is all I’m … Continue reading →

#50by50 #24 – Read a non-fiction book in a new genre

The PolyBlog
March 14 2018

As part of my 50by50 list, I wanted my reading to take me some place different. While I read fiction in lots of different genres (suspense, thriller, mystery, literary, historical, etc.), my non-fiction reading tends to be about either goals / personal change, writing, or organizational development/theory. However, there was a story in the U.S. press about big box stores, specifically old bookstores, being converted into other uses, and in one of the online fora that I follow, the discussion of this topic mentioned a larger book about it – an author named Julia Christensen wrote “Big Box Reuse” back … Continue reading →

Calculating the scope of my ebook addiction

The PolyBlog
January 24 2017

My first e-reading device was a Palm Pilot. I had an early Palm III for a short while, a cast-off as I recall, and then I got one through work and it was the Tungsten. A beautiful device, and I tried everything on it, including reading an ebook. Something old, free, likely from the Gutenberg Project. It was neat, but not something to write home about. I killed my Tungsten in a freak accident at a hockey game involving a folding guest chair, a coat pocket, and a crunching sound as I sat back down after cheering for a goal. … Continue reading →

Falling in love again

The PolyBlog
September 19 2016

Back when I was a wee lad, in the home country don’t you know (well, Peterborough, Ontario, population at the time around 55K), I ordered books from the Scholastic Book Club. I loved the SBC order forms, and frequently started out with 20 or 30 books I wanted, and had to whittle down my order to only one or two. One time, something I had ordered wasn’t available, and they gave me a credit plus a grab bag of three free books.One of those free books was part of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series. Eventually growing to … Continue reading →