Posted on 01/11/2009 6:50:46 PM PST by nuconvert
By KARL ROVE
With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.
It all started on New Year's Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year's resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who'd gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a week in 2006. Three days later, we were in the Oval Office when he fixed me in his sights and said, "I'm on my second. Where are you?" Mr. Bush had turned my resolution into a contest.
By coincidence, we were both reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." The president jumped to a slim early lead and remained ahead until March, when I moved decisively in front. The competition soon spun out of control. We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its "Total Lateral Area."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
But I spend ALOT of money on books.. I might have to cut
back on that this year. Libraries here reflect the area,
progressive Portland, OR has allot of bush hating books on
its current event shelves.. and they don't order opposing
views...
I think that many people were unhappy with the way Bush handled several issues, but were still with him. His repeated attempts to ran amnesty down our throats, and him personally calling his conservative voting base names felt like a deliberate betrayal and it was that which broke the camel's back, so to speak.
My husband does too! He likes to learn about what we consider to be ordinary and how extraordinary it was in changing the world.
“Conclusion: Karl Rove is spinning for his leader. George W. Bush is not a book lover — the very idea is laughable.”
I guess Mark Steyn must be fibbing too. About 2 yrs ago in a Maclean’s article, he too wrote about how well read Pres. Bush is.
Thrift shops. Real cheap and some have pretty good selections too. Of course you will not find many new releases.
Hehe. Thanks!
Agreed. The well researched biography is just something else, if illustrations accompany it. I will not give a list of the great works in that area, but..... I bet he has read Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh. LOL.
Oh! I know, as my Liberal spouse says "you have no taste" (happily)
Gee..you think ?
Mrs. Bush once worked as a librarian. If the President didn’t love books before, he’d better love them now!
And who are you spinning for ?
bookmark
What a nasty guy!!!
This may not be a shout-out to you but I have actually “stolen” I meant gotten books from my Community College library for free. They always have a shelf in the room with all the other books that says “Free” on them and I have learned that they are free books from the library that they have given away. So I got to read mostly apolitical murder mysteries and a few religious murder mysteries along with other books. The library is also great in that it has Stossel, Coulter, D’Souza and other authors.
As for high priced books, Borders can be good for sales. Like you I ruminate a little about my favorite comic strip books being as expensive to buy as one of the DVDs I would want, but it is all about trying to find a second job and hoping that I can become a published poet and also hoping that those new income sources will allow me to dive into more treasures than before. I agree with you about many library choices. I usually find myself going to the humor section in a bookstore which has stuff that you can’t get at many libraries.
As for my most recent book: Modern Times by Paul Johnson, an interesting read.
Amazon's "new and used"
Totally irrelevant to the thread this about someone’s reading habbits not their politics or policies.
Sometimes if you cannot say anything nice it is better to say nothing.
For goodness sake you only a few more days do you to polute every thread this is about reading habbits.
Unfortunately in many peoples eyes if someone does not agree with them 100 per cent they are a RINO.
You just don't get between small town Missourians and .10-.25 cent books and expect to walk away unscathed.
At about the last library book sale I attended, someone had dropped off the complete books of the western world series. That's 54 hardbound books, plus the synopticon (?), plus the 2 volume great conversation cyclopedia, plus about a decade's worth of great books annuals, where they added additional (short) titles every year. So there I was, pushing the two huge boxes filled with all these books down the aisles (I am 5'3" and weigh 107 lbs) , heart pounding, just knowing there was some mistake and there's no way I'd get these books for a quarter apiece-but I did! That's my greatest used book sale find ever!
But the libraries went from holding biannual sales to having books always out for sale on the shelves.Nowadays I usually buy used on ebay, abebooks, or amazon. Even with shipping and handling, I can generally get any book I want for under ten dollars.
LOL, we got a set of them at a library sale here too. They go for very high bids on ebay!
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