The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Douglas Adams Five Novels in in One outrageous Volume Book 2

Just started this again this week. Having already read book one, the audio version, I wanted to read his other four books in the collection.   I started with book one anyhow for a refresher.  Douglas Adams, as are all good science fiction writers, was prescient in what he wrote.   Also a keen observer of our ape descendant small planet, Douglas Adams was able to make us laugh and recognize ourselves and our leaders in his writings.

As my husband considers the purchase of an e reader of some sort, I came across Douglas Adam's prototype of an e reader and internet  He describes "a device that looked rather like a largish electronic calculator.  This has about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million "pages" could be summoned at a moment's notice.  It looked inanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into has the words DON'T PANIC printed on in large friendly letters.  The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporation of Ursa Minor, The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy."  He goes on to say it had to be published in this form because if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several large buildings to carry it around.

I think Tom should have an e reader so he can carry this and millions of other pages around so he does not need to carry around a few large warehouses. Tom is a wealth of information and is the guy you want on your Trivial Pursuit Team; so maybe he already has several large buildings worth of information in his head and a e reader is just added baggage or as he sees it one more unneeded expense.

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami Book 1

 Purchased in Prague July 2010 and carried with me over six weeks in Europe and Israel.  I meandered through this book as we traveled but the sights and the world around me were much more inviting than Norwegian Wood.    Norwegian Wood is different from Murakami's other books in that it has very little magical realism and is a rather linear, sad and nostalgic love story.   At 50 I began this book,  a flash back in time by Toru Watanabe, as he landed in Germany, of the  things he had lost, the times gone forever and friends who had died or disappeared.  Perhaps this was too depressing for a vacation that was taken for the expressed purpose of not feeling 50.  At 52, when I finally came to terms with being fortunate enough to turn fifty, and now fifty two, I finished this book.

The insecure relationships, finding oneself, and directionless nature of young adulthood haunt this novel but no longer haunted my soul.  Perhaps that is why two years later I was able to finish this book.  At fifty I wanted to feel the freedom of the future yet to come, loves yet to happen and dreams waiting to be fulfilled.  Somewhere in between I realized the gifts I have been given and worked hard to cultivate over the years feel like a reward for making it through those uncertain days of adulthood. Or perhaps I was able to finish it because I just had to.  It was Murakami after all!

This book is up for grabs.  Not going to give it to my daughter to read because there are a few too many suicides in it.

books by the bed

As usual this time of year I set about sorting through clothes and at Tom's request books as well. For a multitude of reasons I have books I meant to read, books I never finished and books that seemed good at the moment but never made it into my little hands.   As I looked at the pile and the grey days ahead I set a new goal of reading each book and writing a brief blog post on it.  I have a few rules for this project.
 1. Both real books and ebooks count in this project.  I haven't decided about audiobooks.
2.  After reading the book I have to give it away or get rid of somehow.

3. No adding to the pile.