O! To Be In Wales, and Vachel Lindsay

lfred R. Wallace, naturalist, wrote in 1858:

"This makes me hope I may soon realize enough to live upon and carry out my long cherished plans of a Country life in Old England."

I like his dream quite a lot. One of the first places I would is visit Hay-on-Wye in Wales, to spend a day in Bookbarn International. They have this new technology called a BOOK:

"The "BOOK" is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use even a child can operate it. Just lift its cover! Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere, even sitting in an armchair by the fire yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.

Each BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information.

These pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.

Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs in half.

Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now BOOKs with more information simply use more pages. This makes them thicker and harder to carry, and has drawn some criticism from the mobile computing crowd.

Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain.

A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.

The BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it.

The BOOK never crashes and never needs rebooting, though like other display devices it can become unusable if dropped in water.

The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish.

Many come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval."

Later on, they tell you how you can "make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (Pencils)."

Thanks to Jayne for the sneak peek at this bookstore! Visit her post for a glimpse at the bounties of Bookbarn.

Speaking of books, don't forget to visit Susan Kaye Quinn's Indie Book Fair. "Did you find a new Kindle, Nook, or iPad under the Christmas tree? Browse the Indie Book Fair and find a new ebook to break in that reader!"

So far, off that list, I've read and enjoyed Build A Man by Talli Roland and String Bridge by Jessica Bell. Looking forward to exploring the others!

Meanwhile, though, I've inching forward on my ROW80 goals. I'm 1/3 of the way through editing Rome, Rhymes and Risk (do you like the new title?) and I've started drawing up a list of research items for which I need to head to the library:

Rome

Cem Sultan

What items do you need in your ship's cabin?

Jade, silver, brass and other items of trade in the Aegean

Summertime storms on the Tyrrhenian Sea

Horses and mules and carts - how much weight can they carry?

Travel by donkey when kidnapped

Ayak was asking the other day how other bloggers come up with ideas for posts. One of my new favourite ways to discover stuff is by reading Malcolm's Book Bits and Notions, a daily (!) wrap up of interesting writing- and book-related links.

The other day, for instance, he linked to a Slate article on Vachel Lindsay: "The Mystery of Vachel Lindsay - How did the most visible poet in America—and a father of the Beats—become nearly forgotten?"

I read my first Vachel Lindsay poem in fifth grade, and I've never forgotten it. Here it is:

The Little Turtle

by Vachel Lindsay

A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old

There was a little turtle.

He lived in a box.

He swam in a puddle.

He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.

He snapped at a flea.

He snapped at a minnow.

And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.

He caught the flea.

He caught the minnow.

But he didn't catch me.

[caretta caretta, an endangered species; images taken from Google]