In my own way, I am a shark collector.

I don’t keep stuffed sharks, whether real sharks or cotton stuffed. I don’t really have much at all to show for my shark collection. Not any more at least.

It still bugs me that my brother threw away the shark book I had been given for a long ago birthday. The book was published in 1976, full of paintings of sharks done by Richard Ellis.

I’d been thinking about the book this week, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book or the painter/ author. So I began digging online. I found it.

My Mother thought it was weird to have an interest in sharks, a predatory animal from the ocean. She tried to talk to me about it and talk me out of it. I knew I didn’t have a weird interest. I’m not planning to swimming with sharks, I don’t think about trying to make friends or pet sharks or hunt them or anything else really. I like to look at the sharks, in the photographs and paintings.

I think I like their sleek lines against the backdrop of the ocean. The ocean Richard Ellis paints is quiet, sparkling and bouncing with light hitting the water and the smooth looking shark coasting through the water. I also like the photos of sharks in the waves and crashing ocean. Yes, we know they are dangerous, but there’s more to them. They are a quiet, skilled predator, at home in their universe.

Have you had a book which sticks in your mind due to the loss of the book? Is it worthwhile buying the book again, even if it isn’t about collecting it as much as being able to see and read it again?

I thought about getting another copy of the book. But, it seems unfair when I did have one. So, I decided to leave it. A book unopened, sort of. However, if I see the book somewhere else, like a thrift store, I might get it. This is an emotional decision rather than anything base on logic. Don’t judge me, as they say when they know they have given the appearance of being loopy.

So, at the moment, my shark collection is all online. Available to be shared with anyone who follows the link on Snip.it. (Note: Snip.it closed their service).

There will always be something special about a hard cover book. I mean, a real hard cover, not what passes for them now in the world of publishing and retail outlets. Those big sized soft cover books will never be hard covers, just cheap stand-ins. It bugs me each time I see them called ‘hard cover’ because there is nothing hard at all about those covers.

I don’t know when I was given my first hard cover book any more. Likely it was from my Grandmother, she was a book person. My Dad’s Mother, people on my Mother’s side of the family aren’t much into reading. They’ve been known for cooking, baking and stealing horses somewhere in the distant past. My Dad’s side were the educated, reading, law abiding sort of people. My Grandmother wrote and self published a few books of her own.

Not surprisingly, the first hard cover books I had were story books, fairy tales and fantasy. I can remember books by Enid Blyton and the series of Katy Did books by Susan Coolidge. Later I would read Nancy Drew. They were only out in hard cover editions then.

I miss holding a real book – the way the spine wouldn’t bend and the pages would fall open differently than any paperback book. Bookmarks suit a hard cover book. They never look so elegant and romantic in a paperback.

Depending on your age, you may remember fixing hard covers, adding a bit of tape to the bookbinding. Or, recovering your hard cover book with a soft cover of some kind which would keep the hard cover from getting messy. Some hard covers were shiny or real leather on the older books. They would show fingerprints if you didn’t give them a temporary paper kind of cover. Now there are only paperback books, the hard covers are gone. Just the word and a few elderly books are all that remain.

Bookpacking is custom made for people who like to read. Many backpackers have packed a tattered paperback novel into their rucksack in case they are held hostage by rain pummeling the outside of their tents.

Packing a book for a bike trip, a hike or boating excursion engages both the body and the mind into an outing.

via Bookpacking Combines Travel With Reading | Suite101.

I think it's great someone has come up with an actual word for this. I bookpack every day. Even when I'm not hiking, exploring or road tripping.

Bookbinding is already becoming an obsolete, lost art, even before eBooks and eReaders. This was originally a free ecourse on SuiteU. Preserved here for my own interest, before SuiteU is taken down.

Bookbinding
By Kez van Oudheusden

Introduction

Bookbinding can be inexpensive, easy to do and can produce some unique and individual works. There are many basic techniques that you can use to create books and we will be starting with the simplest of all, a single section notebook that you will use for class notes and ideas. These techniques are easy to master. These are the basic techniques that you can use to build on to more difficult techniques. You can research other book artists work and combine with your own techniques to create unique books. This course will show you the basic techniques and help you get started. Once you have finished this course you will have the information you need to tackle your first project with confidence. …more

Kimberly Raye Writes the Dead End Dating Series with Lil Marchette

Lil Marchette is a fashionista vampire. Labels matter and she does like her clothes. But, keep reading. Lil wants her own life. She begins her own dating agency for paranormals like vampires and werewolves (who are real party girls). Lil struggles to keep her business afloat while keeping her vampire status from her friend and solo employee.

Lil meets Ty, of course there has to be a hunky vampire guy... but Ty is not for Lil. Ty isn't a born vampire and only born vampires are able to have children. Lil's parents would never approve and though she wants her own life she can't leave her family behind. Even though they are pretty high on the eccentric level. (Not by their own born vampire standards of course).

Dead End Dating is the ongoing story of Lil as she tries to balance her life, her business, help friends and dating clients and keep her family from intruding into what she has built as her own life, for herself. Plus, she is a vampire and has those kind of needs too.

I don't identify with the world of the fashionable types. It was a big plus for me that Lil is written as a woman who likes life, colour and being her own person. I like Lil because she wants to make something of herself and she doesn't give up. I also like her efforts to pay her bills and get her dating agency off the ground. Things don't always go her way, like someone in a romance novel.

Resources for Dead End Dating Fans

• Wikipedia - Kimberly Raye
• Goodreads Kimberly Raye