Hello Friends – I hope your weekend was filled with lots of fun and reading. I was catching up a bit on my magazine reading and found a really good article in Real Simple by Laura Lippman on The Book Fairy. Basically, it was about her realizing that her bookcases were out of control and one day realizing that there were certain books she would never read.
She started culling the shelves and suddenly she had 100 books set aside but what to do with them. She created a Mystery Box and started a lottery system for sending out books to the winners. To date she has sent out almost 200 books.
I found myself nodding and thinking, yep, I understand. My shelves are overflowing and yet I still buy books. I have good intentions but now that some books have been on my shelves waiting to be read for more than 20 years or so, you really do wonder if you’ll ever get to that book. I do weed the stacks every year at least but anyway I guess this is a very good problem to have right?
The article also mentions a couple of ways to share books and I would also add that aside from donating to Goodwill, there is your local library, Little Free libraries and don’t forget retirement/nursing homes.
The magazine news I read about was that Cloth Paper Scissors is ceasing publication. I’m so disappointed to learn about this. That magazine has some wonderful artist interviews, tutorials and a little bit of everything for artists. I had to pull out one of my older editions that featured books and art journals. I’m not sure if this also means that their special edition, Pages magazine, will also be discontinued.
This is going to leave a huge void in the artsy community. We’ll still have the publications by Stampington, which I do enjoy, but it’s always good to have other voices.
Anyway, have you read any good articles lately? Or any magazines you miss and wish they were still published?
I used to subscribe to several stitching magazines over the years and was always heartbroken when one of the folded. It’s certainly a tough business in this day and age. Glad you had a good weekend.
I’ve noticed that more and more magazine publishers are moving towards digital and while it helps to save cost and resources, it’s still saddening to hear especially with articles (especially artsy ones) which is best read printed. Sigh. But I do understand the concerns.
Nooooo, on Cloth, Paper, Scissors publication death. Nooooo
I’m so surprised that Cloth, Paper, Scissors will be discontinued. I hate seeing this one fold.
My shelves could use another good culling. Like you, there are books I still haven’t read sitting there many many years later . . . A lot I have read too that I should probably part with . . . I have a rule to only keep the read books I plan to re-read (not that I do a lot of re-reading), but I’m very loose with it. LOL
As for magazines, I have a stack about a foot tall of magazines I need to read–or at least thumb through. I am so bad about keeping up with magazines. I recently subscribed to a new one though through Girl Scouts for my daughter’s latest fundraiser. It’s basically a coloring book–one every other month. I figure Mouse and I will get good use out of it. 🙂
I think it’s hard to be a magazine when few people want to subscribe to you and so many people leaf through you in a chain bookstore rather than take you home! Plus, as others have said, the whole digital thing.
I do relate to Literary Feline though; I literally started reading through a stack of magazines last December and I just finished the last one (in the stack) earlier this month. They had been piling up for more than a year. However, I told myself that, if I didn’t get reading, I had to start cancelling, and a lot of them are small magazines and I didn’t want to do that either. Now I am keeping up, but just barely. If I look the other way for a week or so, who knows what will happen!