1000 Wishes

Today I reached something of a landmark -- I added the 1000th item to my Amazon wishlist. That's 40 pages of DVDs, CDs, boots (a weirdly high number of pairs of biker boots), but mostly books. Apart from reaching this millennial total (which I fear is excessive, especially in view of the almost constant flow of secondhand books flowing into the house from Amazon Marketplace -- these are the books I haven't bought, let's not even get started on the ones I have), a couple of moments this week have made me think more about Amazon wishlists than usual.

This is the book that's been on my wishlist the longest -- added on 30 Dec 2001

First of all, earlier this week I was looking on Amazon on our communal iPad when I realised I couldn't see how to log out of the site. It didn't really matter, but at the same time it bothered me that someone (ie husband or one of my two kids) might look at my wishlist and see all the stuff I've got hoarded on there. Very unlikely that they would be remotely interested, but, nonetheless it niggled away at me. The next day I tried the iPod again to see if my Amazon account had discreetly closed itself up -- no, my wishlist was still parading itself brazenly for all to see. Those 1000 wished-for items are like a very personal archaeology, layer upon layer of enthusiasms, paranoias, obsessions, secrets. I googled 'Help, I can't log out of Amazon!'  and discovered that it's quite a well-known problem -- lots of people are feeling naked in the face of Amazon's apparent reluctance to let you hide your 'wants' out of sight. At least I found out how to log off.

One of the more specialist books on my wishlist

The other thing that got me thinking about wishlists was that a friend's birthday is coming up and it occurred to me that she might have an Amazon wishlist that I could use to get her something she actually wanted. Her name is a fairly common one and there were around 20 wishlists on Amazon for people sharing her name. I started working my way through them and it was obvious none of them belonged to her. Even though some of the lists only had a few items on them, I was sure they weren't hers. Which made me think that an Amazon wishlist really does reflect the personality of its owner.

Dear Lord! What must mine say about me? Leaving aside anything too coruscatingly personal, mine lays bare all my passions and hang-ups: collecting stuff (see above), making stuff (see below):

...different countries. One year it was Japan:

...then Sweden:

Then I really  got into Sweden:

You get some funny juxtapositions on a long wishlist: too much Scandi-noir and look what it leads to:

Not that I suffer from anxiety or depression, but I'm as vulnerable as the next person to hypochondria and feeling that there must be something wrong with me, viz: 

Then there's these lovely sunglasses which cut out 100% UVA and UVB light (and make you look like Bono):

There are passions recorded on my wishlist that came and went without my actually spending any money at all, or very little. My newfound musical hero, Michel Polnareff:

I've made do with just one (stupendous) track downloaded from iTunes ('Love me, Please Love Me' -- a wonderful French torch song, with only the title line sung in English). Similarly, my sudden passion for travelling round England in a VW camper van didn't even extend to renting one for the weekend.

Maybe if I'd gone campervanning, it would've led to Arcadia...

Anyone who knows me quite well will be aware of my predilection for roaming the world via Google Street View, particularly places I'd be afraid to go in real life. Like the favelas of Rio and the poor, trashed blocks of suburban Detroit.

And I'll admit to one or two wobbly moments on Friday afternoons:

And things I didn't even know I was interested in:

Or had forgotten about:

That's probably quite enough glimpses into my psyche -- it can only be of real interest to me, anyway, so sorry for indulging. I really enjoyed digging back down through 12 years of Amazon wishlisting. I saw my interests distilled out: memoirs, childhood, urban history, maps, art, junk, weirdness, psychoanalysis. And I felt so happy that I have those passions and that I'm incredibly lucky to have wonderful books to feed my passions, should I decide to add to my (already massive) piles of unread books.
My other tip, based on today's viewing, is: buy art and photography books as they notably gain in value very shortly after selling out their short publication runs. If I'd bought all the art/photography books that I have on my wishlist, I'd have some quite valuable assets by now:

PS: Happy Mother's Day, mothers. I don't really believe in it (a religious ball picked up and run with by commercialism -- none of which really does it for me) but my son made me a fish-finger sandwich and my daughter made me a coffee and walnut cake and I'm completely happy.

Books for Hipsters

I love this!

Read for RNIB Day

Just a quick post about a fundraising event I feel strongly about. Here's the press release:

"1 In 3 Adults Admit To Hiding Secret Reading Passion, According To Leading Sight Loss Charity

Posted at 10:18AM Wednesday 12 Oct 2011

Almost a third (31 per cent) of UK adults are too embarrassed to admit to loving a particular book, according a new poll from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). In contrast, blind and partially sighted readers face a dramatically limited choice of titles - just 7 per cent of all books are available in fully accessible formats.
Released on the eve of the charity's annual fundraising appeal Read for RNIB Day, the survey reveals that more than one in three (36 per cent) of UK adults have a guilty pleasure author that they love to read in private but would not necessarily admit to reading in public. Books topping the list of guilty pleasure reads for those that admit to them are JK Rowling's Harry Potter (31 per cent) series, with The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (28 per cent) following second, and Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding (19 per cent) third.

In stark contrast to this, new research released today by RNIB shows that just 7 per cent of books are available in formats accessible to blind and partially sighted people - braille, large print and audio books.* As it is predicted that by 2050 the number of people with sight loss in the UK will double to nearly four million, the charity's work is becoming increasingly important and in demand.

Sue Scott, who lost her sight seven years ago, said: "One day I realised that not only could I not see anymore, I couldn't read either. You don't realise it, but reading is everything and when you lose your sight you realise how important it is. From reading the newspaper or an email from a friend, to reading a private letter from the doctor or a bill you don't want others to know about. You become totally reliant on others and you lose your privacy and independence. Read for RNIB Day is a great idea and will help raise money for reading services for blind and partially sighted people, like me. It doesn't matter what the activity or challenge is, as long as its reading related and you're having fun and helping to raise money. I hope that lots of people get involved."

Mayor of London Boris Johnson admitted to his guilty literary pleasure: "When I have a spare moment to read a book, I regularly return to Ludwig Wittgenstein's great philosophical work of the 20th Century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus."

Julian Fellowes, Oscar-winning script writer, author and Chairman of RNIB Talking Book Appeal, says: "Reading is a tremendously important part of my life and I firmly believe that it's one of the pleasures that can be enjoyed one hundred per cent by blind people, thanks to Talking Books. Please join Read for RNIB Day and read something amazing in October to help RNIB raise much-needed funds which will help even more blind and partially sighted people gain better access to reading services and equipment."

Read for RNIB Day is on 14 October and RNIB is asking everyone to get involved and do something reading-related to raise money and support its work for blind and partially sighted people. Call 0845 345 0054, visit www.rnib.org.uk or text read to 70007 to donate £3."

I love reading so much. It's my passion. Well, in fact it's so much a part of my life that I wouldn't even call it a passion any more. I just do it whenever I can. Last night I was reading Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap from 4am to 5.15am because I couldn't sleep. When I read that only 7% of books are available to blind and partially sighted people, I tried to imagine how I'd feel if my reading freedom was restricted to that extent. It would be terrible.

In fact my eyesight has deteriorated quite dramatically over the last couple of years and now I can't read without my glasses. This change in one of my main connections to the world has really disoriented me and  made me feel quite depressed, even though I am lucky enough to have glasses that make it all okay again. It's not the same as my lovely crisp eyesight of yore. My dad is nearly blind from glaucoma and this year I have also had 'vitreous detachment' which was quite alarming (though not really that serious, just another ageing thing -- but the slow flashes of light deep inside my eyes for a few weeks were rather disturbing). So I love my eyes and I love the things I can see with them and I have supported RNIB Day.

www.rnib.org.uk

 Oh, my guilty reading pleasures are: Ruth Rendell, Elmore Leonard and old children's books. What are yours?

Book backlog

Bookmarks at the ready

Most people who love to read have a tantalising pile by their bed of books waiting to be read. So do I, but it's getting out of hand...

This is my corner of the bedroom. We had various cupboards and shelves designed into our bedroom when we moved in. I thought I had been clever in having not only a shelf above the bed but a special little extra shelf recessed by the side of it. Evidently this wasn't enough to contain the creeping stacks, which are becoming reminiscent of a secondhand bookshop (could be worse).

But how am I ever going to read all these books and watch all these movies? Given I'm already committed to two a month (outside of these) to review plus a book-group book, realistically I can only read about one a week of these, if that, so this is several years worth... Help!
     Does anyone else have similar backlogs?