Rolling Along

I completed another story in Everything's Eventual last night and started still another story. The story I completed is entitled "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" with a protagonist named Alfie Zimmer. Zimmer, a traveling salesman of sorts, checks into a Motel 6 in Nebraska where he plans to commit suicide. Over the years, Zimmer has collected graffiti from bathrooms throughout the nation in a spiral bound notebook. He is dreamed of writing a book from such graffiti. As it turns out, he is conflicted as to how to dispose of the spiral ring bound notebook, not wanting his collections from over the years to fall into anyone else's hands. As a consequence, he never can pull the suicide off, and the story ends in doubt as to how it turns out relative to the suicide.

Of course King is a master of horror. That goes without saying. What I must state however is that most of his offerings in horror don't taste that well to me. I would like to think I have a more "refined" taste. More likely, however, my taste is just "different."

A year or two ago I decided that I was going to down size relative to my books. I couldn't dispose of the contents so I decided I would scan each of my books. I purchased a Kodak high-speed scanner --- well, relatively high-speed, a guillotine paper cutter, and software to process the books in a format that was suitable and started in. To date, I have scanned over 250 books going on 300. I haven't thrown away the old books but have stored them away in plastic bins for easy retrieval -- perhaps not too easy -- if I need them. So in essence the scanned books are my backup. I have also acquired an e-reader, that is, an e-book, a Kindle. I love it. It is so convenient to carry my library with me. And I don't mind from time to time reading on my computer or having the computer read to me as I read along.