Free Book
A few weeks ago I clicked on an ad on Bookninja and asked for a free copy of a new book from Simon & Schuster. I mean, a free book is music to my ears. (Yes, I’m mixing my metaphors, but it’s my blog, ain’t it?) It arrived today. I had forgotten completely about it. The Night of the Gun by David Carr. When I get around to reading it, I will probably write about it here, which is exactly what S&S wants me to do, so all you 3 or 4 people who read this blog will go out and buy it.
Anyway, this past weekend I attended the Athabasca University’s Learning Services Conference. This is the department I belong to, and I actually get paid to attend! A $200 stipend courtesy of my union, CUPE. There were some interesting sessions, but I mainly went to actually meet colleagues. When you work distance ed, you sometimes never meet these people. For instance, I finally met my supervisor, who has been in that role for about a year now. Friday night of the conference I attended a powerful talk by Andrew Nikiforuk. Afterwards I gave him one of my bookmarks and told him about my book. I figured he might like and appreciate it, since some of the themes in my book and his talk were the same. He said he’d “look it up.” On the way to Edmonton that day, I stopped and purchased, with the proceeds of my book sales so far, a copy of the 2nd edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and Tim Lilburn’s new book of essays.
Saturday morning we went to the Strathcona Market and then the Edmonton Pubic Library, where there was a massive book sale going on. I bought almost a dozen books–a bio of Auden, 6 or 7 poetry volumes, several poetry studies, and a novel or two–and Sherry bought some books, and we got Wyatt about 10 books for his birthday coming up. Total cost: $37. Very nice.
So I have some reading to do. And I don’t think The Night of the Gun is anywhere on the top. Sorry S&S, I’ll get to it someday. I already started with Lilburn and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.