Jeff’s Blog

I love to read. I have been an avid reader all my life. I read every day, sometimes for hours, if it is a really good book, or maybe for only 15 minutes when I go to bed. Anytime I am in a waiting room I have a book with me. There have been a couple of times when I stayed up all night reading like the first time I read Heilein’s Time Enough for Love or the first time I read Samuel R Delany’s Dhalgren.

For the last 40 years I have been reading, almost exclusively, Science Fiction, with an occasional technical manual. My earliest memories of reading (and Sci Fi) were Boys Life Magazine, in the mid to late 1950’s. I would each issue them from cover to cover. My favorite stories were about a small mischievous alien. I also remember reading a Robert Heinlein story, Star Lummox, (later on published as Star Beast) in 7th or 8th grade (1959 or 1960) and loved it. The only thing I remember reading in High School was Animal Farm.

In 1968 I went into the Navy and anybody that has been in the military knows that you spend a lot of time doing nothing, so I read. I read all the John D MacDonald Travis McGee books that were available at the time and really enjoyed them. But, my favorites were Isaac Asimov, Robert Heilein, Ray Bradbury, Ben Bova… Science Fiction. Then in January 1970 the Navy sent me to Cubi Point Naval Station in the Philippines for two years. The last year and a half I lived in Olongapo City with a “hostess” (another Blog maybe) and really had nothing to do.  The coolest thing about living in ‘Po City was when Tess took me to a market one day, I found the most marvelous thing, book stalls. There were two of them in this market and they each had thousands of paperbacks. I would pick up 5 books at a time for 2 ½ Pesos, about 35 cents. I was able to read tons of Sci Fi.

My favorite books and authors: Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany; any of the Common Wealth Universe stories by Peter F. Hamilton; Doomsday Book by Connie Willis; The Wander by Fritz Leiber; the Foundation and Robot novels by Isaac Asimov; the Dune novels by Frank Herbert; The Dorsi novels by Gordon R Dickson; the Gateway novels by Frederik Pohl; the Riverworld and Dayworld novels by Philip José Farmer; Robert Sawyer; C. J. Cherryh; Greg Bear; Charles Stross; Robert Charles Wilson; Ray Bradbury; Poul Anderson;  Actually, there are way more than I can list here.

The best place to buy your books, used books stores (unless you just can’t wait for that book or somebody gives you a gift card to a book store). Katreena and I always look for used book stores when we travel. Lately I have been buying most of my books at Bookmans Entertainment Exchange http://www.bookmans.com/ throughout Arizona. My next blog will be on my list of books to buy and to read.

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