Sitting on the gate pier in the courtyard is a very handsome Yellowhammer. The first of the season. We stop and admire it. The farmers wife joins us as does the retired Professor of Physics. A gaggle of excited dogs run around our feet. In a small Scottish village the comings and goings of our regular visitors - not all of whom are human - is a shared interest.
A series of posters advertising upcoming talks in the windows of a house in town.
The village watchlist for March :https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/march-birds-of-the-month
Book or Kindle ? :https://psyche.co/ideas/what-does-switching-from-paper-to-screens-mean-for-how-we-read
Rhubarb season :https://agoodtable.substack.com/p/celebrating-rhubarb
I hope this can be accessed from behinds its paywall. It is very sensible ( and calming and written by a retired Professor at Kings London ) and is one of the half a dozen or so substacks we subscribe to :https://samf.substack.com/p/two-steps-backward
The King has been busy :https://x.com/BBCPaulAdams/status/1895914772803305927
12 comments:
I read on a screen or my Kindle these days, with the occasional paper book from my library. That said, Angus, I admire your and The Font's bookshelves and that you still buy printed books, however I have always wondered two things. 1. Do you mark up, underline words, fold corners, etc as you read, or do you leave the books looking unread for someone else to enjoy? 2. Do you keep a log or personal journal of the books you have read (as my late father did) with notes, comment and ratings out of 5?
I like a Kindle; very convenient. But a real book has more soul. The information is more gently transferred to me and endures.
The King has indeed been busy, and not just in diplomacy. I was on a fruit tree pruning course yesterday at Gordon Castle, and among the other participants were gardeners from Balmoral Castle and Birkhall, the King and Queen's small private residence near Balmoral. It has a beautiful garden, as seen recently on Monty Don's British Gardens series. There is much garden renewal going on at Balmoral, Birkhall and Sandringham, apparently.
As for books - paper books at home, both bought and from the library. It's partly because the physical experience of reading is so much better with a book, and also it's my small stand against the whole world disappearing into a screen. When I travel, however, I sometimes take a Kindle. I'm aiming to detach from it now tho, because....Amazon.
Hari Om
There was enough of the Freedman article to appreciate without without having to pay up. When it comes to texts (philosophical and medical) then I favour books. However, for general reading, it's the screen... and even that has become less as I have adopted more the audio book facility of my library app. YAM xx
Not having access to a Library and finding "real books" more and more expensive, I favour my Kindle. Most books I read just once, so it makes sense to buy for my Kindle, where I can delete them after reading. If I decide to keep a book, there is space to store it and I don't need to resort to buying more bookshelves. In the days when I used to travel to far flung places, it was so much easier to slip the Kindle into a side pocket of my hand luggage - gone are the days of cramming half a dozen books into an already overfilled suitcase!
Interesting substack.
I'd never heard of a Yellowhammer. I wondered if it is a noisy bird, but according to the OED, the "hammer" part is believed to derive from "amer," which has nothing to do with noise and seems to have been a generic term for bird. Maybe more satisfying, I learned there is different Yellowhammer that is the state bird of Alabama. According to Outdoor Alabama, the name of that “Yellow-hammer” comes from the name of a company of cavalry soldiers who wore yellow bits of cloth on their uniforms. I thought the Psyche article was brilliant. I realized that I can't read "serious" books on my Kindle, but I do use it to read detective novels before sleeping. I never read those twice and hate to throw away books. I was intrigued by the idea that we can teach ourselves to slow down and absorb more when reading online. I think part of the reason we rush through things is that there is just so much to read these days. The King does seem to be working hard.
It looks like a wonderful place for a nice pilgrimage walk. For over a decade I was almost exclusively a kindle reader, since I left the office, I read mostly print books, and use my kindle when I travel.
I prefer old-fashioned books to screens. As a commenter above said, they have more soul. And though we're very selective about what books we buy, it has led to our home looking a little like a branch library. When Home Depot delivered a new appliance, one of the deliverymen said to the other (in a tone of amazement), "Look, they have books!"
Until recently we've always lived in large family houses with shelf space for around 10 thousand books. Having downsized we can barely get 3 thousand on the shelves here. When they become a hazard the University library is called and they come and take away what they want. They are happy to take the latest books on dull subjects like astronomy or international relations and we can feel comfortable that the books are going on to a new and better life. I'm forever folding corners due to the fact I like to keep half a dozen books on the go at any one time.
I prefer books but now have no sight in one eye and impaired sight in the other. I now read all books on my Kindle - some I buy, others I borrow from my library. I read the newspaper on my large computer screen. I am grateful that is technology that makes it possible for me to read...
Books first and foremost (I still have my grand-father's complete Victor Hugo-1930's edition) and various libraries apps on my tablet. Never Kindle because well...Amazon.
There is some hope in certain circles here that the King might decide to visit soon, as a subtle rejoinder to, you know, the 51rst state...
I have a kindle for reading at work or on the go, but library books to read at home. Our library allows online reservations and I am always supplied with new releases quickly.
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