Cedar Choppers

 This book is about long-ago Austin area residents -- my great-grandfather is mentioned in it. 

Little Free Library

 

On our wanderings during the pandemic through various neighborhoods we have visited lots of Little Free Libraries. We peruse the offerings (we've taken a few) and I often carry books we want to give away in my backpack to place in them.

Take a Book, Leave a Book

I like to snap pictures of these structures that offer a book exchange to their neighborhoods. This one is in Old West Austin.

Day 37-Inside with Our Stuff

This was taken a while back, but it shows one of a cool pair of bookends we have on the shelves surrounding our platform bed. I know it wasn't taken recently because there is no dust and it looks too neat! We continue to mostly stay inside. Provisions arrive at the door. We go to the lobby for mail and packages and lobby delivery occasionally. We venture out to the trash chute, down the elevator to our parking level (where we try to start our cars and take recycling). We drive around the neighborhood a bit. If we don't go to the lobby, we sometimes don't encounter another person. We wear masks and handle the doors and elevator buttons and such with a sanitary wipe. We come back and ditch our shoes at the door, wash our hands, put our clothes in the laundry, wash our hands again, etc. And so it goes. We know that we will eventually get it, but hope treatments and testing make the thing more knowable before it has a vaccine and we move through herd immunity (if it will exist for this) and vaccines and on to the next crisis. We are pretty resigned to not outliving the after-effects of this. But we are old. And we won't get all these books read before we die either.

A Christmas Present we Received

We are getting old, but we are still so far from 100 that we can't imagine it. My niece gave us this book for Christmas.

Another shot from the Banned Books Fest -- commentary on Toni Morrison.

Ban those books!

This dolled-up gent read a passage from Marlon Bundo at The Banned Books Bash the other night. It was a fun gathering and there were even tacos!

Great stories

Friends of ours wrote this fine book about their lives together. It was a delightful read -- and a short history of Austin as well.

Up in the air

This biography about a friend of ours is terrific -- it recounts his rise from abject poverty to being  a top pilot in WWII to the CIA.

Panel about new book

We went to an interesting discussion about a new book -- "Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact." The author, Asher Price, is in the center of this photo. He had some amazing tales about the institutionalized racism at The University of Texas that he uncovered in many memos and letters within the UT libraries and elsewhere.

Here's a book that makes a statement

I am almost tempted to buy this one.

$600 is serious Cash

You can buy this signed first edition of Johnny Cash's biography if you have a spare $600 burning a hole in your pocket. Available at South Congress Books.

Serious Discussion

We attended a book reading and discussion at the new Central Library, which is about a four block walk from our place, the other night. Nationally known columnist and pundit Matthew Dowd, left, interviewed Ben Fountain, the author of "Beautiful Country, Burn Again."

A great book

This historical novel about Cathay Williams was written by a good friend of ours. The book's subject
was an African-American who enlisted in the Union Army after the Civil War. By the way, she posed as a man.

Book promotion

The author of this book must live in this Clarksville bungalow. Or maybe the owner here is just a friend.

A great book by a local author

Our friend Elizabeth Crook has written a terrific book which has the University of Texas Tower shooting as its touchstone event. She is getting lots of national press and many good reviews about it. I took this shot at a local bookstore which has it prominently displayed.

Big display of a great book

Sarah Bird is a good friend and one of our favorite authors. I was glad to see this display of her latest work at BookPeople, a few blocks from where we live.

Let's file it in the stack . . .

Yes, I have a lot of books half-read.  I remind myself of a kid who goes through a candy box leaving a lot of sweets half-eaten.

Little Free Library

On West Lynn on the lawn of a church this has appeared so neighbors can share books. It is a 'LittleFreeLibrary.' See here for their Web Site.

New Mural for the Books

This wall on South Congress used to be repainted frequently with murals...sometimes just ads and sometimes seeming to promote the art glass shop in that building. Now that South Congress Books occupies the building this mural showed up. I can't tell if it is finished or in progress. We frequently shop here so we'll find out.