Today's poll: BOOK SPINE-BREAKING

Which type of book person are you...the type who will do anything to avoid breaking the spine of a book, or the type that doesn't care? I lean toward the former and secretly shudder whenever I see someone put a new book open and face-down on a table; I have to physically restrain myself from rescuing it. Ditto for when I see someone dog-earing pages on a book.

On the other hand, there are some books in my collection that I read so often that they reach the point where it doesn't really matter anymore, where their spines have been broken so many times out of sheer use. Those are usually my comfort books, the type I take into the tub with me and happily read while their pages wrinkle. So I suppose I'm both type of book people, depending on the book.

I think I could have been a bookbinder in another life; I've always been fascinated by the whole process, especially for older books. Which is one of the many reasons I enjoyed Cornelia Funke's Inkheart and Inkspell recently:

These books for young people are the first two in a series. One of the characters is a bookbinder while another is an avid collector of rare books, and there is an obvious reverence for books in the story. I liked the first book (Inkheart) so much that I went back to the store to buy it in hardcover. The hardcovers are especially nice because even under the dustjackets, the covers themselves have the same gorgeous coloured illustrations as the jacket. Didn't like the second quite as much as the first, but still looking forward to the next one.

Another recent read:

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata was another book for young people. The narrator's voice threw me off a bit in the beginning...I found it a bit too "I'm so cute and clever" at first, but then got caught up in the relationship between the two sisters as well as the story, which focuses on a Japanese-American family that moves from Iowa to Georgia in the 1950s. I made the mistake of reading a particularly moving part of the book while on the subway and had to stop reading because I didn't want other subway patrons asking me why I was crying. :-)

I've been slacking off on my language studies lately, so have started listening to my Living Language All-Audio Italian course again in preparation for our trip later this year. As I mentioned before, Jeff and I have been looking forward to this trip for several years, and we'll be visiting Paris, Florence, Italy and Rome; I've never been to any of these places before. Many thanks to my mom-in-law, who made this trip possible for us!

I'm also thinking of finding a short "Travel French" audio course, one that focuses on the bare essentials. Any suggestions? I took French in high school up to Grade 12 but haven't used it in many years. We'll only be spending a few days in Paris (I'M GETTING EXCITED JUST WRITING 'SPENDING A FEW DAYS IN PARIS'!), so I don't want to invest a ton of time in this.

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