“Real” & Electronic Books

“Real” Book
Trees of Panama & Costa Rica
Electronic Book
Hercule Poirot: The
Complete Short Stories
I don’t buy many “real” or paper books any more with my Kindle Fire and the easy access to so many books electronically. And as an Agatha Christie fan, the Kindle has been a great joy for me with basically no storage space needed! And the best deal yet has been my current reading of The Complete Short Stories of Hercule Poirot. The cover says “More than 50” which of course means 51 stories, almost like 51 little books. I’ve loved every one as I’m now on the last 12 which are sort of related in their connections to the Roman mythology of Hercules, Hercule Poirot’s namesake! (Note that Hercules Roman mythology is similar to the Heracles Greek mythology.) And equally interesting is that this last series of 12 stories were all written in the year of my birth, 1940, and first published in magazines in both England and the U.S. Cool!
But nature reference guides are mostly easier to use in paper format, so my new “real” book on the trees of Costa Rica will hopefully help me identify more of the trees I see and photograph here. Experts know the names of around 3,400 trees here (more than all of U.S. & Canada combined and they still have not identified them all here. This particular book includes Panama which has a lot of overlap with Costa Rica and is produced by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Isla Barro Colorado in the middle of Lake Gatun, Panama which I visited Dec. 2013, making me confident this is the most authoritative resource available for now. And though I haven’t gotten into photographing trees like I do birds and other animals, the importance of trees ranks near the top as ecology indicators and value to us humans.
 
“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” 
 Kahlil Gibran

 

Illustrated by my photo at Tambor Bay last Christmas:
If a tree dies, plant another in its place.   -Carolus Linnaeus

My Library

My library recharges at night, Kindle Fire & Samsung Cellphone (Kindle App).

One of the smartest things I did before the move south was get a Kindle Fire and then add the Kindle App to my cellphone! I read everything from the Bible to novels, National Geographic and occasionally the news, all electronically on my Kindle. When riding a bus or eating in a restaurant I read on my phone. As a quote I used yesterday in the butterfly post says,

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”  
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
FYI, I’m currently reading the latest English version of Don Quixote and it is too early for me to have a judgement on it yet (but a little weird so far).  A couple of days ago I finished reading Pay It Forward, one of the best books I’ve ever read! It is by Catherine Ryan Hyde whom I discovered by accident from a little 99 cent Kindle book by her titled Electric God which was very good and pointed me to Pay It Forward which was also made into a movie. Sorry that Netflix is not streaming it, just on DVD which I can’t get here. It is about how a little boy’s school project to “change the world” actually did! Of course the movies are never as good as the books!  🙂

Locally made bookcase with doors
to protect from dry season dust. It
is between book boxes & guest
room wardrobe.

After arriving I started by reading all of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit,  and all the books in Lord of the Rings series. Great ways to escape the American culture! Those lengthy readings were broken up by two John Grisham mysteries, Agatha Christie, Louis L’Amour, three books on Costa Rica, two science fiction books, and The Psalmist (a mystery) by James Lillieford, a new and interesting writer for me. I’ll try him again.

Because I did bring two hard copy Bibles, my photo books, a couple of books on simple life, and my bird, butterfly, plants and other Central America nature & travel guides, I got a little bookcase (Pequeña Biblioteca), with doors to help with the dry season dust. It is simple, handmade locally, and serves my purpose well. I will also be keeping a few of the genealogy books as I go through them, but all my scrapbooks are going to be photographed and become electronic files as most of genealogy stuff will.

Mostly, my library now is my Kindle Fire! Best library yet!

Nature is my theme, so here’s one nature photo:     🙂

Rainy Day Green! Even with dull, overcast sky, greens seem brighter in rain!
Another view from my balcony in Atenas, Costa Rica!

And for those of you who know Reagan Frazier, he just scheduled a visit with me for two weeks in February 2016, just 8 months away!  🙂  But if thinking about it, February is off limits now.