Give books for Christmas!

"Do give books for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal." -- Lenore Hershey.

When in doubt, give a book! A novel, a coffee table book, a cookbook, a memoir. War history, Dr. Seuss, a fishing manifesto, great moments in golf, a beautiful leather-bound edition of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, folklore, the making of a favorite movie, a travel book, poetry. There's something for everyone, even for non-readers. Really. And they're not expensive, at least not most of them. And we need them as a society. And in order to be able to keep them around and plentiful, we have to buy them.

Jim and I have checked out more books from the library in the past two months than in the previous ten years combined. No joke. We haven't been buying books like usual. Part of it for me is the Cybils; for Jim, he's catching up on some graphic novels he never wanted to fork over the $$ for, plus art books he wants to see before deciding whether to buy. And the library is FABULOUS. Saintly. I love it. Love love love. But books must be bought too, to support the industry (and yes, checking out library books DOES support the industry too) and the authors, so more will be produced. And more and more. To feed our heads, forever and ever.

I found these cool links through fellow-Cybils panelists The Compulsive Readers:

-- "When the going gets tough, the tough buy books"
Go over there and list your book-buying exploits in the comments. They're keeping a tally and hoping to reach a million books. They, um, have a long way to go. Help them! They'll add the covers of your book purchases to their rolling slideshow. It's cool. People who love books are cool. Aren't we?

and

-- Buy a book, save the world. It's a facebook community devoted to the buying and giving and hoarding of books.

Oh, and a reminder, it is almost the end of Patrick Rothfuss's insanely glorious fundraising drive for Heifer International. As of this moment he has raised $36,000 dollars!!!. Can you believe that? He set out to raise $5000, with the goal of matching all contributions. Well, I guess he has more blog readers than he realized! I posted more about it HERE. And he's still matching every donation! Which means that if donations reach $40,000 by the 11th, that's $80,000 for Heifer! How incredibly awesome is that??? And, for every $10 you contribute, your name goes into a drawing for prizes of books, his own and other contributors' (including signed copies of Blackbringer and The Drowned, the graphic novel Jim and I did with Image Comics a while back.) So: good deed + prizes = excellent! The deadline is December 11th, so go give a little if you can. And add Patrick's book, the acclaimed The Name of the Wind, to your book-buying list, because: does he not deserve it? (Also, the new cover is pretty. Or is it the UK cover? I don't know, but I like it.)