welcome to the book club

greetings fellow lovers of seeds of knowledge but more in love the fruit of wisdom! it has been two years in the thinking and putting off but i've had the internet where i've been the past month (though i won't again tomorrow) and thought if there ever was a good time to unleash the beast it is now.

two years ago i stayed in a kid's basement that could have been the set for "that 70's show". his name was micah, he loves bob dylan, vinyl records, and a lot of music that i don't...and somehow we decided that i should start a book club. not because i think i'm smart but because i like to know of good books and thought others would like to know good books too. but this book club is not about good books because i don't always choose to read good books. it's more of a "hey, i'm reading this right now. have you? what did you think? what do i think?"

i don't plan on really offering a review of the book either as i'm not the best at that sorta thing. sure i'll say if i like it and think you should check it out, but as of right now this is not going to be like book reviews you find in the newspapers or proper blogs, necessarily. it's primary purpose is just to recommend and show you what i am reading. but i will review it to a degree, though i'm not a scholar and am not setting myself up to be some sort of book critique expert. other people long for such things and get paid for such things but i have no ambitions for such things. though should i stumble upon some expert book reviewing skills i would happily embrace them. then maybe manuscripts could be sent to me, oprah would call me and ask for suggestions, my name would be added to endorsements, i'd make money off of advertising, and on and on she goes. but let's not kid ourselves.

why do you care what i'm reading? i don't know, but i can guess. still i won't. it's just that over the past five years of me traveling around many of you ask me what i'm reading and i tell you. well now i can tell all of you at once you see? and in the process maybe you can make a friend or two as well. maybe find your wife or husband. check out some profile pics and drive a long way to see that some things do not look better in real life.


couple things to note...
1) i will be speaking about movies as well. until a year or a bit more ago i didn't watch movies much at all. i even thought it wrong to watch them, not on account of the content per se, but because i had a hard time with a person enjoying himself for no other reason than to enjoy oneself. in my mind, i equated that with too many movies is too many a bad thing. but i've relaxed on that view a bit and i enjoy a good film for no other reason than to enjoy myself.

2) movies or films? i'm sure people that like watch independent films would not consider harry potter a "film" as defined and maybe they are right. i will say movies more often than not. i put film in the blog title simply because i like that word better, film. isn't it nice? film. and it sounds a bit more high brow. i can do with language what i cannot do with my clothes because i am more comfortable as i routinely dress. but "film", why that carries all sorts of scene points, nevermind what i'm wearing while i type this.

3) i felt bad for brittney spears when she was going a bit off the deep end and was posting all these deep thoughts on her myspace blogs and people kept pointing out her poor punchuation and speling/ i am not concerned with that here. there will be misspellings and poor grammar and things that our teachers told us to never do. i could go over and hover searching for mistakes but that's not the point of this blog. i am just writing, most likely always stream of consciousness style and in doing that errors will occur. so please be okay with that because i am.

4) at the moment this blog is visually unappealing. i have no interest in knowing how to use a computer much less do i want to put the time into doing it proper. so hopefully i'll get someone that is into that sorta thing and make this blog more aesthetically pleasing to you and myself as well. i think highly of things looking nice for more reasons than one so just hang in there for a bit and over time it will be more like petting a cat than rubbing sandpaper on the back of your hand.

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now that i've got you all hyped up, blown up, you're super stoked dude can't wait this is going to be awesome, let me reveal something. let me maybe make you feel like you felt when you found out the kid never was in the ufo balloon but hiding in the attic where his parents told him to hide...what kind of books do i read?

you are probably thinking fiction. for sure right? he's a poet, songwriter type, of course he loves keats and pablo and pretentious british literature right? no, no i'm sorry. i am, at the moment, very narrow in what i read. i hardly read fiction at all with the exception of lord of the rings! my primary passion in reading are books on religion, particulary christianity or the person of jesus. i find it hard to read fiction and enjoy nonfiction much more. though i'm madly into tolkein lately, with lord of the rings and this past month i've read 3 biographies on the man himself, maybe this is opening up a new door to fantasy? and after i've cascaded the mountains i'll want to come down to depressing made up real life accounts that so many people seem so hung up on all the time? i don't know. i only know my patterns of the last few years. to be honest, if every fiction book were as good as "east of eden" by steinbeck perhaps i'd read more of it, but from what i've found it isn't. and if you've read the best, listen to the best, sleep with the best, then why bother with less than best? maybe it has it's value, but this is just how i see it.

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having said all that, i look forward to this. reading your thoughts, sharing my thoughts and our authors thoughts.

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practically speaking, i'll post a book or two and you are welcome to say what you'd like about it, heard about it, etc. i will say to please not expect me to respond to everyone or anyone individually as i don't have the internet except when i go to the library and i've not the time to respond to all things all the time, especially when i am on the road as i am much of the year. i will read all comments, though. over time i assume we will figure out the best way for this to work...i just want it to be as interactive for the each of you as possible and i don't really know how that looks as i'm not big on internet or social networking internet stuff.

how often will this be updated? i assume at least once a week. sometimes more perhaps but should be at least once a week. subscribe to it and you'll always be in the loop!

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i write this, i establish this in the name of love and invite you to participate if you are so willing. subscribe to this blog, follow this blog, check back to this blog, link to this blog, tell others about this blog, or whatever it is people do to find out about these things.

thank you for time.

sincerely,
bradley