Category Archives: Books

My collection of books

Binding my books

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My technique is to:

Separate the book into parts if the printed thickness is over about 1 inch.

  • Separate the book into parts if the printed thickness is over about 1 inch.
  • I’m currently using Thick Kraft Chipboard (30pt) for covers. In the past I used heavy report covers.
  • I put two coats of padding compound (that’s the stuff they use to keep a pad of paper together) on the spine.
  • A later coat of padding compound over cheesecloth wrapped around the spine extending 1/2″ onto the covers is added.
  • The spine is covered with 5″ duct tape which extends onto the covers. The original report covers had a window which showed the book title and author. I apply a label with the title and author on the chipboard covers. The spine label is hand printed, which doesn’t look good.
  • I’m experimenting with 11×17″ vinyl sticky labels to replace the duct tape and label. They don’t completely cover the book because of the thickness of the book. I haven’t decided on whether to leave a gap on front and back or just on the back.
  • They can be printed on my Epson XP-960 inkjet printer.

The ones I’ve printed in the past have stood up very well

Imager by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

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Rhennythyl is the son of a wool merchant and is a journeyman portrait painter when he causes his master’s house to blow up.  He discovers that he is an imager, one who can create things by imaging them.  He goes off to the Collegium Imago on Imagisle and is trained as a covert imager (read spy).

There are three threads in the story:

  1. His training
  2. 5 attempts to assassinate him
  3. His family and his new girl friend ( a Pharsi although she is a 3rd generation local)

Most of the story is about his training.  The questions that his teacher makes him think about are fascinating.

  • Is our government good?
  • Is it better than the others?
  • What are the best characteristics of a covert imager?
  • What is the real purpose of a quorum call?
  • Why is government necessary?
  • …

I couldn’t put it down and will have to go back and re-read it to think more about his training.

The assassination attempts provide a bit of action and mystery which will have to be solved in a later book in the series.

His interplay with his family and his girl friend’s family is very well written.

Books

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I have a large collection of books numbering ~10,000.  Most of them are Fantasy or Science Fiction.  Another large part of the collection is marketed as Young Adult or Intermediate.  Much good fantasy has been published in these catagories.  I never throw any of these out

I also have quite a few technical books which do get discarded when they are obsolete.

I will be cataloging the books in Koha.