Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 11, Season XI… nice, neat numbers in Arabic and Latin! We’re definitely trailing off now with only two more Alphadays this season: 14th May and 28th May. Please take note. There may be matters you want to discuss while we’re still all mobilised. Now is a good time to have your say.
The agenda for this Alphaday is still quite enticing, I think, and I hope you’ll agree. You’ll probably notice and regret the one missing item this time. There is no new brief. For that you’ll have to wait patiently until the start of Season XII.
The following items are on offer for your benefit and for your enjoyment:
- This bulletin from me
- The Log with your news edited by me
- The results of the colour challenge from Sue
- The collated entries for the body part(s) love letter from Geoff
- Perhaps even another showcase piece from Suzanne, if you’re lucky!
I’m sure there’s plenty in that lot to interest you on this Alphaday. Our challenges are certainly varied and each one allows us to explore new ways of expressing ourselves. I always find it interesting to see how differently even a simple topic can be interpreted. We’re lucky to have such a varied group where each one gives their all and writes with engaging enthusiasm and verve.
For my latest piece of writing I started by looking round my bookshelves for inspiration. I have bookshelves crawling up all my walls and wouldn’t want it any other way. I know exactly what’s there, even if it’s such a long time since I read some of them that I’ve forgotten the details. But I can take them out and remind myself.
I’m aware that most homes nowadays aren’t as littered with books as mine is. I realise that I’m probably becoming a sort of bookish Miss Havisham. Oh yes! There’s plenty of dust and cobwebs in amongst that lot… and plenty of nostalgia as well.
I started the main part of my collection when I was a student and we had to buy books. I’ve got a lot of those Everyman cloth-covered hardbacks.
Then there are art books, wildlife, history, geography, language and all sorts of reference books and dictionaries. Many are illustrated, some even extravagantly so.
I know I can Google for information and I’m quite addicted to trawling through the wealth of information that has become so wonderfully accessible.
But I still find my own reference books useful, and they do have the advantage of no adverts popping up to disrupt my reading.
My ‘real’ books sometimes have the most extraordinary underlinings and pencil notes in the margins. But that’s not at all comparable!
What I’m working towards is to say that e-books can’t give me the experience I have with my physical, real books. I read e-books and forget them. I find it hard to check back on passages once I’ve finished an e-book.
I go back to the books on my shelves again and again. They’re not brief, superficial encounters; they’re trusty, old friends.
That’s why I think the printed book has nothing to fear from the rise of the e-book. It’s not really a rival. It’s a different commodity altogether.
But you may think differently.
Christine