I sound literate and well read. Yes, I am well read, and that is only a result of spending the last eight years in the various aforementioned gated communities. Before my location change, it was either computer related magazines and manuals, or the daily newspaper. I very rarely read any book, fiction or non fiction.

My current location is not the easiest to have access to current titles, but yes, I have read some of Janet Evanovich and do find her to able to make me laugh. No small feat in prison to be sure. I have not read "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." The Sue Grafton Alphabet series is a great way to present your titles, and I have read a few of them.

At this point, I would like to plug a company called Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller; it is located in Falls Village, CT. They have an incredible variety of books, and the prices start from $1.95 and go up. You can find them on the web at EdwardRHamilton.com. The site contains all the titles they have available, and you can print the order form, list the books you want, add flat $3.50 postage, and mail the order using good old fashioned snail mail. Within two weeks you have your books. They are offering a separate web service at HamiltonBook.com that adds a $.40 fee to each book for credit card purchases.

The mail service works great and the prices for the books range from reasonable to flat out bargains. They have all types of books, so give them a look. They also carry some very reasonably priced tapes and CD's. They have an incredible array of art and architecture books at great discounts. They print a newspaper style catalog of their selections which is great for us web challenged types, and provides hours of reading entertainment just looking at what is available. They have a very simple business model and no customer service number. It shows that you do not have to have all the bells and whistles of an Amazon to sell books.

I had recently asked my friend (the editor of this blog) about a title I heard about on a show on NPR. The book was on the subject of forgiveness (something particularly near and dear to us prisoner types). Well, he finds the book title on Amazon and sends me a copy of the six to eight pages of unnecessary (IMHO) verbiage.

I ask: do you want to know eight people’s opinion of the book, or which other books purchasers of the book also brought? To me, it seems that this is part of the information overload we are all suffering from. And who do you think is going to pay for all those great bells and whistles? The beauty of books to me is "finding" books on your own. Yes, there are the bestsellers like "The DaVinci Code" (currently $14.95 from Hamilton), but think about the books you have found on your own. Viva the individual!
  ¶ 12:34 PM