Have you ever read a romance novel?

Unless I'm looking for specific books I usually just hit the used book stores. But it's 130km to the nearest city with a bookstore (there's one in a town 85km in the other direction, but the Sci fi/fantasy selection is terrible), and that city has 3 used bookstores and 1 new book store, so there's actually a better selection of used books than new. Can't say I ever tried Romance novels though, I can usually find at least a handful of SciFi/fantasy that look interesting. Though when I take a trip to the big city 600 km south I usually hit a Chapters to load up on new books

Wow! My complements. And here we thought we lived way out in the rural or remote parts. Our nearest Interstate Hiway is 30 miles away; the nearest big shopping mall is 55 miles away.

Our small mountain valley town only has four (4) traffic lights. The nearest railroad is about 30 miles away and slowly dying. We do proudly have a 6000 foot nice airport about 8 miles away.

But ... we do have a couple of good second hand stores in town, including in one a nice cheap paperback book section including in that mostly mushy sexy romance stories. Time to stock up!

HB of CJ wrote:Wow! My complements. And here we thought we lived way out in the rural or remote parts. Our nearest Interstate Hiway is 30 miles away; the nearest big shopping mall is 55 miles away.

Our small mountain valley town only has four (4) traffic lights. The nearest railroad is about 30 miles away and slowly dying. We do proudly have a 6000 foot nice airport about 8 miles away.

But ... we do have a couple of good second hand stores in town, including in one a nice cheap paperback book section including in that mostly mushy sexy romance stories. Time to stock up!

Wow indeed

63 miles to an interstate, 42 to the nearest used book store. There is a local airport just outside town, long enough to be partly on two quarters, mainly used by the spraying airplanes. The local public library is good. I can remember when it was only one small room at the city hall. Even with speed reading, it isn't possible to read it all now

The inter library loan works well for books they don't have, except for a tendency to have book "traffic jams." They were six books behind, then four came in two days, which was not the local librarian's fault. They work their way down my list at a book per week, two in the winter when there is less to do. Current non-fiction read is "The Ivy Portfolio."


BTW, I once read a historical library joke: Before printing, Oxford University bragged about their library - they had over 150 books in it. (slow scan of any bookshelves nearby) Whether true or not, printing made a major difference in the rate of increase of knowledge. At present, the doubling time is supposed to be under ten years. (See Daniel 12:4). If only there was a good way to sort out the trash

HB of CJ wrote:Wow! My complements. And here we thought we lived way out in the rural or remote parts. Our nearest Interstate Hiway is 30 miles away; the nearest big shopping mall is 55 miles away.

Our small mountain valley town only has four (4) traffic lights. The nearest railroad is about 30 miles away and slowly dying. We do proudly have a 6000 foot nice airport about 8 miles away.

But ... we do have a couple of good second hand stores in town, including in one a nice cheap paperback book section including in that mostly mushy sexy romance stories. Time to stock up!

That's 4 more traffic lights than the town I live in. As of the last census we had 3100 people, and I beleive around 20,000 in a 100 km radius around the town. Those numbers have likely dropped a fair bit since the oil crash though. I don't really consider myself terribly isolated though, as it's all a matter of what you are used to, and most of Canada's population is rather close to the U.S. border, while I have always lived a fair ways North of that.
But for real isolation, Id say the Yukon takes the cake. Whitehorse is around 20,000 people and the closest larger city in Canada is Grande Prairie Alberta with 60k around 1700 km away, 2200 km to Edmonton for the nearest large center. For true isolation though, there are 3 or 4 communities along the Alaska highway with populations of 10-50 people in the 600 km stretch from Ft Nelson BC to Watson Lake Yukon. Now that's isolated (no cell service at all on that stretch last time I made the drive either). If you ever get the chance to make the drive though it's absolutely beautiful and I highly recommend it

Odium wrote:Unless I'm looking for specific books I usually just hit the used book stores. But it's 130km to the nearest city with a bookstore (there's one in a town 85km in the other direction, but the Sci fi/fantasy selection is terrible), and that city has 3 used bookstores and 1 new book store, so there's actually a better selection of used books than new. Can't say I ever tried Romance novels though, I can usually find at least a handful of SciFi/fantasy that look interesting. Though when I take a trip to the big city 600 km south I usually hit a Chapters to load up on new books

You need a tablet and to go paperless in your reading. Look at a good E Paper tablet too. I'm switching from my heavy books and magazines and going Paperless. Still I find I'm keeping several paper books but just need to recycle or donate them. I do so every week often several times a week. Having trouble donating my old childhood books but I'll ask around amoung the new mothers and see if they want any of my Original Doctor Seuss etc... Moving books is a big deal, selling them difficult and reading on a tablet uncomfortable until you get used to it. But once you do, you are free. 6,000 book library and 30 book cases reduced to 1 shelf and 3 tablets. 6.44" tablet, 10.1" Tablet, & 20" Tablet, what I'm using to type this right now in bed.

I'm also looking to divest my art and stuff and switching to a smaller place with a hololens eventually. When I can pack everything into a Uhaul trailer I will be done. Last time I moved it took two 53' moving trucks.

Today i'm putting my Kijiji (Craig's list) ads for furniture online. I'll keep some antiques. Downsizing frees you up. Time to convert things into cash. And living light with Extra dimensional stuff.

Unfortunately I do a lot of my reading at work, and working in the Oil and gas industry any electronics I have out of my vehicle have to be intrinsically safe (explosion proof). So tablets just don't work for me. Not too concerned about space or difficulty moving paper books anyway, I just bought my first house last year and we have a room for our library and no intention of moving again for at least 30 years

Senior Chief wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:I recently, 2015, read a Linda Howard book Shadow Woman. Romance Mystery. I didn't know it was a Romance novel till I got to the rather explicit sex scenes. It is a great book. More along the lines of the X files or Soldier of Fortune magazine, than a typical romance novel. With sex scenes. Suffice to say Linda Howard has been added to my reading list. Although I still get a bit self conscious looking in the romance section.

Have you read John Ringo's Ghost series... talk about explicit sex scenes...

If you thought Ringo's Ghost series was explicit, you should try the more recent books in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series!

Yes, some of them are very good. I tend to read a variety of different genres. Though I admit I tend to prefer the romance novels that also have either a mystery/suspense component or a paranormal component rather than a pure vanilla romance.

Odium wrote:Unfortunately I do a lot of my reading at work, and working in the Oil and gas industry any electronics I have out of my vehicle have to be intrinsically safe (explosion proof). So tablets just don't work for me. Not too concerned about space or difficulty moving paper books anyway, I just bought my first house last year and we have a room for our library and no intention of moving again for at least 30 years

Amazon delivers paper books too. Where do you live? On one of the camps in the oil sands? Hopefully your house isn't in a fire zone.

Lord Skimper wrote:

Odium wrote:Unfortunately I do a lot of my reading at work, and working in the Oil and gas industry any electronics I have out of my vehicle have to be intrinsically safe (explosion proof). So tablets just don't work for me. Not too concerned about space or difficulty moving paper books anyway, I just bought my first house last year and we have a room for our library and no intention of moving again for at least 30 years

Amazon delivers paper books too. Where do you live? On one of the camps in the oil sands? Hopefully your house isn't in a fire zone.

No, I'm an hour and a half North of Grande Prairie. We had a 210,000 acre fire about 90-100 km west of the town I live in, and I was working around 10km from it, was kind of interesting "snowing" ashes on us and ready to get out on a moments notice if the wind sent it our way. My wife had bug out bags packed just in case after seeing what happened to Ft Mac, but there wasn't any actual danger to my town. Thankfully we got 8" of heavy wet snow right before Victoria Day that pretty much put it out. With all the rain this month now flooding is more of a worry. Lol
No Oilsands for me thankfully, part of my job is spill cleanups, and the one time I had to clean a Bitumen tank near the Peace River Oilsands let me know I want nothing to do with that stuff, absolutely horrible stuff to try cleaning up, if I had to deal with Bitumen on a regular basis I think I'd find another line of work