Why Books Are Dangerous

[mrissa]

Today I got advance uncorrected proofs of a couple of things, thanks to a nice bookstore owner, and also some sale books. I went from the bookstore to the library to pick up a bunch of books I'd put on hold, some for work and others just to read.

And on the drive from books to more books, what did I come up with? An idea for another book, of course. That would require me to reread at least three series and a bunch of research material on topics I have never previously considered interesting.

Dangerous things, is books. Or maybe it's the driving that's the problem. If I hadn't been driving, I might have been...er...reading, probably, or working on a book, or talking to a member of this household, as likely as not about books. No, I fear the driving is not to blame here. Just the books.

I did not buy the entire other Dorothy Dunnett series at the bookstore. Naturally I wouldn't have bought all the Lymond books, as pameladean has already lent them to me. Does that stack of lovely Lymond books to read decrease my urge to get more? Oh, what do you think? Of course not! It makes me want to get an unsampled series by that author! In its entirety! Books! Breeding more books!

Nobody has as yet advanced the evolutionary theory that a writer is a book's mechanism for making another book. At least not in my hearing. But it does not sound implausible to me.

Comments

[pameladean]

I've got the other Dunnett series. In gigantic hardcovers. I don't reread it as much. It's twistier and in some ways darker.

Pamela

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Nobody has as yet advanced the evolutionary theory that a writer is a book's mechanism for making another book.

I'm not positive about this, but I think that that makes books viruses (virii?), biologically speaking. Since they can't reproduce on their own....

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is a reference to someone-or-another's comment that "a chicken is an egg's mechanism for making another egg."

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's a symbiotic relationship? Writers get as much from reading and writing the books as the books do in being propigated. I feel a big digression about book-genetics and the role writers play in the evolution and development of book-kind coming on...

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

So writers are like the bacteria in your intestines that actually help your digestion, then?

If that doesn't make you want to run out and write a book, I don't know what will.