Stealing Books

Interesting (and ironic) factoids from an essay that will appear in the NYT Sunday Book Review, already posted on the NYT website:

• The book most often stolen is the Bible. (At least, most often stolen from BookPeople bookstore in Austin, Texas.) The Bible even is stolen from a Christian bookstore that will give 'em away free is people ask for one. (Maybe when they know you'll give it away, they figure they don't need to ask....)
• St. Mark's Bookshop in Manhattan locks up the work of certain authors in a display case because they're so often stolen. ("This library of temptation includes books by Martin Amis, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo and Jack Kerouac, among others.")
• The most-stolen authors are male, apparently because book thieves are predominantly male.
• "Only 40 percent of books that are read are paid for, and only 28 percent are purchased new, said Peter Hildick-Smith of the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry. The rest are shared, borrowed, given away — or stolen."

Read the full essay, "Steal These Books," here.

Breesus

Miracles are happening in New Orleans. Witness this photo taken on the Mississippi River only a few days ago. For those of you who don't recognize this man on sight, it's Drew Brees, quarterback extraordinaire of the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS football team! They're now 13-0 (a true miracle for those of us who have followed the Saints over the past 40 years), division champions, and heading into the playoffs with a bye the first week and a home field advantage thereafter. Not to mention our hopes, expectations, etc., of the Saints getting into the S-s-s-....er, we won't say the word for fear of jinxing our team. They have three games left in the regular season. Regardless of the results in those last games, however, the Saints are in the playoffs! Many of us, faced with a difficult situation, now ask ourselves, "What would Breesus do?"

It's Halloween and the Sphinx has flown back!

It's been so long since I've appeared in Blogworld, I can't resist jumping out tonight to say BOO!

I won't yada-yada-yada the story why the blog's been on hiatus for so long. I'll just say this has been a very eventful year for me.

Years ago, a very productive author gave me some good advice. Asked about plotting, he said, "What is plot? Why, it's just one damn thing after another."

If that's the test, my life this past year could be the plot of a book.

On a forward-looking note, any day now I shall become a grandmother. My daughter (Sphinx Link) will be presenting me with a grandson. I plan to call him Sphinx Inkling.

The photo has nothing to do with my lengthy blogsilence, but it's funny.

Resurfacing; or Excuses, Excuses, Excuses; or The Dunciad

I never intended my hiatus to go on this long. Since my last entry (good grief, more than 3 months ago!), I spent many weeks on a combination of sick leave and vacation time. I thought of topics for a new blog entry, but using my computer was frustrating because it had begun to run very slow and hang up a lot. I kept postponing a new entry. I enjoyed vegging-out to the max.

A couple of weeks ago I had to re-enter the real world, however: I returned to my job full-time and have been busy catching up on a backlog of work. I'm grabbing a few minutes to say I'm alive and still kicking. But disgruntled.

Very disgruntled, because a few days ago my laptop computer was stolen. That means my only Internet access now is at my office. I can arrange for a replacement computer--a friend has already found one someone wants to get rid of--but I'm mourning the loss of everything that was on the stolen computer. Everything I've written in the past year--from e-mail to business documents to personal writing--was on it.

And, alas, I hadn't backed it up. And I didn't password-protect my files.

Yes, you may sneer and tell me you don't feel sorry for me. Any experienced computer user who doesn't back up regularly is a fool. And password-protection is elementary security.

I am making a dunce cap for myself right now.

Not Quite Back from Hiatus

Well, I'm back, sort of...not having to blog from the afterlife, at least. I'm ten days post-surgery, minus tumor, also minus a kidney. (Fortunately, I have another kidney.) Will be recovering for a few more weeks, but am doing okay. Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post. Whew.

I've been contemplating how I might use this experience in my blog, and thought of recounting various details of the hospitalization/surgery/medication/recovery experience on the theory it might be useful research for someone...then I realized that idea was really just a thinly-disguised version of the recovering invalid's compulsion to talk ad infinitum about her surgery. Which is, of course, excruciatingly boring to everyone except someone else who's experienced the same thing! So I'll spare the details.

All I can say is, having gone through this with laparascopic surgery and found it difficult that way, I can only imagine how much worse it must have been in days prior to this modern method. I have a number of interesting small scars developing across my abdomen, from where various surgical instruments were inserted and removed, and a bit larger scar through which they pulled out the kidney. If not for the laparascope, however, apparently I'd have a scar about nine inches long throbbing across my side and abdomen.

Anyway, thanks to all of you (my vast crowd of readers, heh heh) for your good wishes and good thoughts. I believe they helped me get through it safely.