In a somewhat desperate attempt to revitalize a desire to continually input intellectual literature to my life, I purchased two books today. Actual paper books too, not just my typical Amazon digital reader for my phone. There is just something special about actually opening a book and turning papes that seems to get lost in the shuffle of Kindle’s and Nook’s.

My wife has in an avid reader, and loves nothing more that spending an afternoon walking through Barnes & Noble reading the summaries of every book in the store. It comes much harder for me however, and I have to be VERY interested in the read to be motivated enough to finish it. So for this purchase today I picked up something that I know will do the trick.

Vonnegut – Bluebeard

I’ve always been a fan of Vonnegut’s work. My first experience being Breakfast of Champions, a story of two lonely old men, one a Pontiac dealer and one a Pulp Science Fiction writer. I’m not going to lie, my main reason for choosing to read this next book by Vonnegut is in the name. Anything Beard related will intrigue me regardless of actual content (though I doubt this will be lacking whatsoever).

Nerdville

The second choice will bring light to the true nerd in me. CSS: The Missing Manual is a in-depth overview of the use of Cascading Style Sheets to style and create web pages. Despite using and writing in this language on a daily basis, I feel it always good to have a reference guide handy if needed. I’m planning on reading through this just to refresh and hopefully will pick up a few tricks along the way.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still most likely do a large amount of my reading via RSS feeds and my kindle for iPhone application, but I’d like to think my love for the things if the past will allow me to continue reading in the old paper book fashion.