I have not been posting on my web site in a while, so I think I should start at least recording the books I’m reading.
I just finished “On Asking God Why,” a collection of essays by Elisabeth Elliot. The thirty short chapters deal with a wide eclectic assortment of topics ranging from priorities, prayer, abortion, divorce, death, rock music, selecting a spouse, suffering, loss, and other things. She peppers her narratives with flashbacks to her missionary days in the jungle, her loss of her husband, Jim Elliott, at the hands of Cannibals, and a life of travel and public speaking. I enjoyed reading most of the book in one sitting this morning, but the work could also serve as a daily reading for a month of reflections. I recommend it.
I confess - I am an insatiable bibliophile. Providentially, God spared my library from the ravages of Katrina. My books sat just inches above the high water line and we were able to rescue them before the mold hit their pages. They stayed in storage until we moved into our new home. In the past year and a half, with the weight of the rebuilding efforts, I have barely had time to read new books, much less sort my library into any semblance of order.
For years I’ve wanted to catalog my books but never found an affordable software package to do the trick. I’ve been hearing about Library Thing so I finally opened an account to try it out today. Using a cuecat barcode scanner I picked up off of eBay for 9 bucks, I entered in a few shelves of books this afternoon. While listening to the Mike Corley program, I quickly hit the 200 title free limit. The scanner works very well once I figured out the trick. You have to hold the infrared eye over a blank area on the cover for a second or less and then swipe it smoothly across the barcode. The device then dutifully enters the ISBN into the web form.
I’m not sure how many books I have, but for $19, I upgraded to a lifetime membership and plan enter the rest of my collection. You can check out what I have so far under my username elbourne.
