Sunday, July 2, 2017

I Bought Two Books!


and you might think, Big deal, Knittergran. Everyone buys books!

Hah. Yes they do, and so do I; I have bought many, many iBooks and I read them on my iPad, which allows me to change font size and background color so I can read at night without lights on. However, this time, I wanted actual hard copy books so that I could share them with a couple of people I know who will be interested in them. I have yet to master the "sharing" method Amazon offers on only some books. 

I went to an actual brick-and-mortar bookstore (Barnes and Noble, the only one left around here) and bought these two books:


One is about the Donner Party and the other is about um...probably stuff I don't understand but I can try, and I am a big fan of Neil De Grasse Tyson because he let my granddaughter interview him over Skype a few years ago. Also, I like him because he does try to make things understandable to amateurs, like me. However, he did write and narrate a series on the next big extinction, which is going on now, and that was kind of scary, really, but we are bringing it on ourselves. We need to STOP doing this.

The Donner Pass book is of course about the infamous Donner party and their attempt to reach the west during the Manifest Destiny era in the United States. I listened to an interview with the author on NPR's Fresh Air and according to the author, there are all sorts of rumors and false impressions about the trip. They did have to resort to cannibalism, unfortunately, but there is a lot more to the story.

So, hard copy books still exist and now if I can find my glasses, since I can't make the font larger, I will read two of them.  grumble grumble grumble  where are my glasses?!


2 comments:

thelma said...

I suspect the more one reads the less educated we become because there is a vast ocean out there of reading material. The last three non-fiction books I ordered, never finished one of them - because they were too heavy in content! But will look up the Donner book.

knittergran said...

I am thoroughly enjoying the Donner story; the author writes a good bit about the people on the trip and you feel some allegiance to them. Maybe they'll make it!