Library Visit

Recently, I've been stricken with the need to reread some old favorites. I lay some of that blame on the recommendations many of you made on Facebook about your favorite books. It reminded me of how many great books I've read through the years, which meant I needed to dive back into those stories so I could enjoy them all over again.

Hence a late night visit to my library's online site to check out some ebooks. Imagine my surprise when I find out that they have no record of either of my library cards. (Ohio has set up our libraries so that the ebooks are available to anyone with a library card to a participating library, which is pretty much all of them.)

It had been so long since I went to the library that they let both cards expire, which meant I couldn't check anything out until I'd physically visited a branch and signed up for a new card. There was a time in my life when I rarely went more than two to three days without visiting its hallowed halls. Now, it's been so long that I don't even know how long my card was inactive for.

Part of that is because life got so crazy while I was in the military what with basic, followed by more training before deploying overseas. It meant visiting the library or even a bookstore was no longer as easy as it once was. It was a luxury I could only indulge in rarely.

For me, the ebook revolution came at the perfect time and allowed me devour my favorite addiction even while waiting for a black hawk helicopter to carry me to my next mission or the next base I was staying at. It meant I could have hundreds or thousands of books at my finger tips. No more picking which book to take with me or being bored midway through an airplane trip because I'd finished all of my reading material.

That, plus the easily affordable price of many indies now means a majority of my reading is done by buying books on Amazon. It made me forget how walking into a library is like visiting a well loved friend- one I haven't seen in far too long. It was such a welcome feeling that I ended up checking out four books, despite planning on getting them through the ebook library. Here's hoping that I remember to return these.

I love the smell of books. Don't you?

The Awesomeness that is a Library

Growing up I was a bit of a library fiend. My weekend plans almost always involved a trip to its hallowed halls and I could be found visiting its stacks three or four times a week. I always had at least a dozen books checked out at a time. For a while I was pretty sure that I had funded the new expansion for our local library simply because I was paying so much in fines and late fees. At one point I had nearly $127 accrued. Don't ask me how since they don't let you check books out after you have more than $10 in fines. Somehow I managed it, though I think I had help from my mom.

In the past few years I've quit patronizing libraries and have instead spent major bucks on my personal library. This wasn't intentional it just happened. Part of that was because I was in the military for a few years and one of those years I spent in Afghanistan. This was okay because people from home was always sending Soldiers books so my FOB (Forward Operating Base) had a pretty decent selection of donated books. There was also a program that you could sign up for that would send books in your favorite genre to you for free. The only catch was that you wouldn't be able to pick the books and what you got was what you got. Most of those books had been donated to the program and I read a lot of books I wouldn't have normally.

The other reason is my kindle and the rise of indie authors. It can be very difficult to talk myself out of buying a book if it's only $.99 or $1.99. I spent so much money doing that while overseas that it was slightly unreal. That habit carried over when I got back and it has only been recently that I've started visiting the library again. Mostly because I had a sudden hankering to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back. I'm glad I did because I was reintroduced to an author I used to follow fairly religiously until her books took off in a direction I didn't like. Her most recent book blew me away and since I've gone back and reread her other series. Best of all, it was all FREE! That doesn't even touch all the new books I discovered just walking by the new books pile. Authors I never would have given a chance to otherwise. It also helps that the library has started buying books in one of my favorite genres, Urban Fantasy.

It's like I've rediscovered an old love and we're getting to know one another again. I'm going back and rereading old favorites, finding new favorites and this is almost no charge to me! I say almost because I'm already racking up the fines:) It's always fun rediscovering previously known treasures which the library was to me when I was young.