Oh Books...

"You really lose a lot by never reading books again." - The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (14 March 1916)

When I think about books there are always a few of my favorites that give me a sense of contentment, and creates a connection with something other than myself. These feelings probably stem from the actual reading of a some particular book, and maybe from the smell of one or two older volumes. However, I have recently discovered the joy of creating an inventory of books, almost like a book about the books that are my current companions!

If I may be so bold as to imitate Lewis, I think I might write something like, "You really lose a lot by never being able to find the books you've read again." My time has become occupied as of late by a wonderful Mac program called Books. For me there's nothing like books and a digital log book of books, and this does just about everything I desire. Since I'm running a G3 iBook with OS 10.3.9 I had to "settle" for Books 2.3.5, but I'm not sure I'm missing out on much. The best feature by far is the ability to look up ISBN numbers for books so that all that information doesn't have to be typed in by hand. Type in the ISBN and Books searches the Amazon database for the matching information. There is also a borrow/lend feature which allows me to keep track of the books that I've let friends borrow: when it was borrowed, by whom, and when it was returned.

So, if you enjoy books, and think that your library may need a bit of organizing, and you are a Mac user you should check this shareware program out at:

http://books.aetherial.net/wordpress/