Location: A festering pit; a pustule of a fistula set athwart the miasmic swamps of the armpit of the Gulf of Mexico - a Godforsaken wart upon a dark crevasse of the World. (IAH)
I doubt I am the only person who prefers to read whilst traveling. In fact, I prefer a good book to many of the other options available onboard flights (Movies, Music, Computer Games, etc.). You don't have to stow a book upon takeoff and landing, don't have to wait for it to boot up, and don't have to worry about file errors or skipping (unless the author was a half-wit). In a sense, to some, books are the ideal entertainment travel product. This thread is being created to test the viability of an FT Library Free-Loan.
The table below lists books from my library which I am making available to the FT Traveling Public. Books are arranged alpha, by Author. Titles are given, as well as the owner of the book, the present possessor of the book, any requests for a book, and the geographic location of a book. If you see a title you like, feel free to lodge a request here, or by PM. The requester will be responsible for paying shipping, or, alternatively, arranging a meet with the owner/possessor of a book in their immediate vicinity. Owners of books are free to attach whatever conditions they wish to loan of their own books prior to loaning out a book (obviously). With regard to the books I am making available, I do not care if a book is subsequently re-loaned to another FTer, so long as a record of such transaction is made in this thread, or via PM, so I can keep the table below current.
Anyone wishing to make available books from their own collection may indicate as much here, or via PM, and I would be glad to add their books into the table. Likewise, people are free to create their own tables in subsequent posts, if they so prefer. Again, this thread is a proof-of-concept type notion - it may work, it may not. I hope some will at least derive a positive benefit from it.
The Library
Code:
Author: Title: Owned By: Held By: Location:
Adams, Douglas Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Saint Augustine Confessions ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Aw, Tash The Harmony Silk Factory ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Ballard, J.G. Rushing to Paradise ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Berendt, John Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Bourdain, Anthony A Cook’s Tour ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Bowles, Paul Let it Come Down ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Bowles, Paul The Sheltering Sky ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Boyd, William Armadillo ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Buckley, Christopher Boomsday ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Bukowski, Charles Women ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Burroughs, William S. The Soft Machine ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Cahill, Thomas How The Irish Saved Civilization ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Cahill, Thomas Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Camus, Albert The Plague ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Chabon, Michael The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Chalmers, Robert Who’s Who in Hell ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Coelho, Paulo The Alchemist ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Dante Inferno (Translated by Robert Pinsky) ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Dos Passos, John The 42nd Parallel ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Dos Passos, John 1919 ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Dos Passos, John The Big Money ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Duncan, Glen I, Lucifer ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Eco, Umberto Baudolino ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Eco, Umberto Focault’s Pendulum ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Eco, Umberto The Name of the Rose ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Eugenides, Jeffrey Middlesex ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Franzen, Jonathan Strong Motion ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Franzen, Jonathan The Corrections ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Fry, Stephen The Liar ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Graves. Robert I, Claudius ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Hawthorne, Nathaniel The Scarlet Letter ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Hemingway, Ernest The Sun Also Rises ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Herman, Arthur How The Scots Invented The Modern World ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Hesse, Hermann The Glass Bead Game ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Hornby, Nick How to be Good ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Huxley, Aldous Brave New World ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Koestler, Arthur Darkness at Noon ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Krakauer, Jon Into The Wild ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Kundera, Milan Immortality ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Kundera, Milan The Unbearable Lightness of Being ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Kunzru, Hari Transmission ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Mailer, Norman The Gospel According to the Son ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Murakami, Haruki Kafka on The Shore ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Neilan, Paul Apathy ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Nersesian, Arthur Unlubricated ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Orwell, George Down and Out in Paris and London ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Othmer, James P. The Futurist ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Palahniuk, Chuck Choke ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Palahniuk, Chuck Diary ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Palahniuk, Chuck Haunted ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Palahniuk, Chuck Survivor ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Phillips, Arthur Prague ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Pierre, DBC Vernon God Little ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Pynchon, Thomas Gravity’s Rainbow ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Rand, Ayn Atlas Shrugged ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Rhinehart, Luke The Search for The Dice Man ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Roth, Philip Portnoy’s Complaint ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Self, Will My Idea of Fun ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Sinclair, Upton The Jungle ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Smith, Martin Cruz Rose ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Stephenson, Neal Cryptonomicon ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Strauss, Neil The Game ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Styron, William Lie Down in Darkness ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Toole, John Kennedy A Confederacy of Dunces ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Tusset, Pablo The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Vidal, Gore Empire ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
Vidal, Gore Lincoln ALCO ALCO Houston, Texas
I hope the table is legible to all. Having used "Preview Post," it appears fully aligned on my macbook, at 1280x800 Resolution. My hope is that the "CODE" tags have preserved this alignment for all attempting to read it. Happy Reading.
Location: A festering pit; a pustule of a fistula set athwart the miasmic swamps of the armpit of the Gulf of Mexico - a Godforsaken wart upon a dark crevasse of the World. (IAH)
I thought I would also post a brief list of cities I will be traveling to in coming weeks, where I would have time to drop off a book and/or grab a drink, if another FTer were in the same locale, and were so inclined:
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Harlingen/Brownsville/S. Padre Island Tx
Washington, D.C.
"Eastern Approaches" by Fitzroy MacLean. Amazon.com description:
"The classic true adventure story of a man who, by the pen, sword, and diplomatic pouch, influenced some of the most significant events of our era. Fitzroy Maclean recounts his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia; in the Western Desert, where he specialized in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines; and with Tito's partisans during the last months of the German occupation of Yugoslavia. An enthralling narrative brilliantly told."
I love the idea.
The table looks fine in a Vista system Firefox browser.
Cataloging my own collection is a daunting task, and since I'm based generally out of ARN, mine is probably not a whole lot of use to folks, but it's a grand idea.
Nice idea. I'm with you as to reading being the thing I like to do on my flights (when not sleeping!). If I have to get something done on my laptop I will, but the nice thing about a flight is it's pretty much a distraction-free zone, perfect for reading. I just put on my Bose QC2s -- usually with no music -- and absorb myself in a book. To me that's actually one of the great pleasures of flying!
Of all the amenities that people care about on flights, the number of movies or channels available to me is far and away the least important. As a matter of fact, about the only thing I use the screen for most of the time is to look at the map of where the plane is on flights that offer it. I actually find that pretty interesting -- I guess I like geography!
As to the details of your book-exchange -- I'm generally inclined to give books away after I read them unless it's something I really want for my library.
Location: A festering pit; a pustule of a fistula set athwart the miasmic swamps of the armpit of the Gulf of Mexico - a Godforsaken wart upon a dark crevasse of the World. (IAH)
As to the details of your book-exchange -- I'm generally inclined to give books away after I read them unless it's something I really want for my library.
Likewise. Thought I would give FTers first dibs (and somewhat keep them recycling throughout the community)
The only books from my collection that I'm holding back are works by Hunter S. Thompson (have pretty much everything he has written) and Phillip K. Dick (same).
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ALCO, thanks for posting the thread... it looks great on IE7.
Glad I could provide a home for your efforts.
I will have to think about bringing books back now... I normally give them to Flight Attendants when I finish reading them to cut down on what I have to carry.
Location: A festering pit; a pustule of a fistula set athwart the miasmic swamps of the armpit of the Gulf of Mexico - a Godforsaken wart upon a dark crevasse of the World. (IAH)
ALCO, thanks for posting the thread... it looks great on IE7.
Glad I could provide a home for your efforts.
Likewise, thanks for providing a home. Sorry it took far longer than I expected to get it operational. I didn't realize how long it would take to round up all my books from the four corners of the house, catalog them, then make it all look pretty in FT. Now to see if it works. Looks like I'll be the crazy guy foisting books on people at upcoming DOs.
That is an interesting and diverse collection of books. You're sure to make an interesting dining companion, Anglo.
On extended holiday trips I crave worthwhile reading material but can never seen to find anything I like in remote locations. Now, when I visit a used book shop, I keep an eye out for favorite authors and buy them up for two to three bucks each. That's cheap enough to leave them behind at my vacation destination. Unfortunately, I've managed to collect some really interesting sets and now I hate to part with them.
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I have a few books I'd like to give away. I'll register them on bookcrossing before sending them out.
Ahern, Cecelia - Love, Rosie
Bryson, Bill - In a Sunburned Country
Golden, Arthur - Memoirs of a Geisha
Hiassen, Carl - Skinny Dip
Harris, Joanne - Blackberry Wine
Kellerman, Jonathan - When the Bough Breaks
McCourt, Frank - 'Tis
Moore, Christopher - Fluke
Morgan, Marlo - Mutant Message Down Under
Picoult, Jodi - Harvesting the Heart
Rendell, Ruth - Harm Done
Sparks, Nicholas - The Guardian
Tan, Amy - Saving Fish from Drowning
Tan, Amy - The Opposite of Fate
while e-books aren't quite as useful as "real" books in terms of airplane reading, I find e-books plus a reader for my iPhone are a good fallback when I'm bored and don't have a book handy.
Personally, I choose paperbacks that look interesting and are thick at the airport bookstore, then leave them when I'm done for someone else to pick up. But its nice to have a couple of hundred books on my iPhone as a backup.
