Frank Zappa once said, “drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.”

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If you’re having failing grades or an IEP diploma — maybe if you’re even a high school drop out. Don’t worry about it. Get yourself a library card and you could learn each subject that they learn in school on your own. In my opinion, school teachers are probably the worst source to learn from. Some teachers are good and some are bad at teaching.

Yesterday, I went to get my library card. The library is cool. You can learn so much stuff from it. As you can see, I have become a HUGE history and political buff lately. I have been doing a lot of reading on both. I’ve been reading so much on government and various presidents over the years. Soon, I’m going to start reading books on different wars like World War II, World War I, The Civil War, Vietnam.

The library is awesome, and I think I’m gonna go a lot more often. If you want to be really smart… you don’t need school to be smart.

Your mind is like a muscle. You build those muscle memories to make yourself smarter just by doing a lot of reading & studying. You can do that on your own as a fun hobby. It’s a great way to get yourself a GED or to get yourself into college if you want to. You don’t need to rely on teachers to learn. You can learn yourself just by reading a lot.

I’ve been reading a lot more political and history stuff ’cause I don’t read too many fiction stuff. The only fiction I pretty much read are Stephen King books and the Game of Thrones series. I like to read a lot of non-fiction such as politics, history, celebrity biographies, rock memoirs. There’s not a lot of good stuff in the fiction world.

You can get yourself educated in the library. Not in the class room.

Kev

Today, I went to the town Library ’cause they were having a book sale there, and I walked out with several books that costed me around $8.00 in total so they gave me a good deal. Two of those books were Stephen King books, “Salem’s Lot”, and the baseball book about the Red Sox, “Faithful”. So I just added two more books to my Stephen King collection. So that means I have two more left to go to complete his entire body of work. The two books of Stephen King’s collection I need left are, “Cujo”, and “Danse Macabre”. Those two books are extremely hard to find.

I don’t really understand this. Why are Stephen King books especially the original editions of his classic books so difficult to find when they shouldn’t be? How come you don’t see original editions of famous novels of any author in new bookstores these days? I have a few ideas of how this maybe…

• The book industry is dying – I remember in the old days of new bookstores you can easily find original editions of your favorite books just about anywhere — this is how it used to be in the early 90’s. Now the classic novels you want to own original editions from any author — whether it will be Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dean Koonts, Peter Straub, Tom Clancy, Anne Rice, etc. — you can’t find those in the new bookstores. If you wanted to find those books from your favorite authors, the older novels, you have to buy them in paperback or digitally. The book industry started to tank even before the digital age.  If you want to find the original classic editions the only places you’ll find those are either online, used bookshops yard/garage sales, and library book sales.  Since new bookstores don’t sell the classic original editions anymore, that’s how they spreaded across the country and that’s why they are so rare and hard to find today. The older Stephen King books are so rare. I just got lucky finding them at the used bookshops, library book sales or whatever. Getting most of Stephen King’s books didn’t happen over night. It took me years to collect them all ’cause he has too many in his bibliography.
  
• The digital age of books is part of the reason – Again, the Nook, Kindle, Ipad, etc. That could be the big reason why nobody cares to buy books on hardcover/paperback anymore.
• Nobody’s interested in reading those popular authors anymore – In this day and age of books, nobody’s interested in reading Stephen King, Barker, Koonts, Anne Rice, Clancy or John Grisham anymore. Today, kids just want to read stuff like Harry Potter, Twilight, and the 50 Shades of Grey books. That could be the big reason why they don’t sell the original editions of those classic authors at new bookstores anymore. King is still a best selling author but his popularity and recognition kind of tanked. Probably because Stephen King hasn’t put out a good book in the last 10 years with the exception of “Under the Dome” which was his best book in a decade. Seriously, check out “Under the Dome”. Even if that book was pretty long, it’s a real page turner and will keep you hooked ’til the end.
• Nobody no longer cares how special hardcover books are – The reason there’s a lot of used book shops and library book sales all over the country is that people still have a passion of book collecting. Collecting hardcover and original editions of rare books. People have that addiction. Why? Because actual books can last a lifetime and they can be very valuable. That’s why people stick with paperback or those digital gadget e-readers. They don’t understand how special hardcover books really are. They just don’t care. They’re like, “Why have these annoying hardcovers with the cover jackets when you can read the book digitally?”. That’s the thing, you know. Hardcover books do matter. They were big in the old days ’cause there was no such thing as internet or technology. When you collect hardcover books — the original editions — you not only keep them just for the sake of reading. You keep them as a special collector’s item ’cause you can betcha they will be very valuable down the road. That’s what people are missing. How valuable books can be. That’s why they mistakenly think, “Ah, this is nothing, lets get rid of them.”. Books are very special for a lot of reasons. I thought I explained that before?

So you get the idea and I’m sure you understand my feelings on the book industry. The book industry is crumbling.

As for those other books I bought today at the Library book sale, I’ll list them: Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”, Stephen King “Faithful”, Christopher Reeve autobiography “Still Me”, Steve Jobs (biography by Walter Isaacs), “President Kennedy” by Richard Reeves, a book about the Civil War, a Richard Nixon biography, and two Barack Obama books “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope”. I know I’m anti-Obama but I’ve been wanting to read those two books just out of curiosity. Most of these books are hardcover except for the Obama books, they’re paperbacks.

As you guys probably noticed, I’ve been doing so much reading on history and politics. See? I’m not freakin’ kidding that I’ve been studying my ass off on this stuff. I’m sure you can probably tell by the way I’ve been talking about politics and government online… so there… yeah, I know my shit and think I’m doing a good enough job proving it.

Kev

I still like to buy books on hardcover and collect old books ’cause why? I want to keep it old-school. Reading books is very good for you. It’s very healthy for your mind. Reading books will help you get smarter. It’ll help you think; will help you become a better person. I’ve been buying used books at book sales and used book shops like crazy this Spring. Earlier today I went to take a long bike trip out to a book shop out-of-town, and came back home with 4 different books. Came home with another poetry book, a biography of Abe Lincoln, a book about the Kennedy Family, and a book about writing. Yesterday, I went to an Antique Fair, and sure enough they were selling old books too. Yesterday, I picked up a couple of classic books: “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Phantom of the Opera”. I also picked up a World War II history book.

Last week, I picked up a brand-new book called, “American Sniper” the Chris Kyle story that Steven Spielberg plans to make a movie out of — a brand new book, not a used one.

I’ll stop buying books for a long-while because these will keep me busy throughout the Spring-Summer.

The whole point of reading was that they want you to learn so you can get away from un-healthy things like video-games, TV, etc. Sure enough, technology had to change things around. The digital age of books: the Nook, Ipad, etc. I know I made similar posts like this before but I’ll make it a little different this time. Honestly, I hate the digital age of books. When the Nook, Ipad, and all these gadgets came out where you have to stare at a computer screen to read books, that’s unfair. It’s unfair to the original goal of what books was originally intended to be, if you know what I mean. Nobody reads books by hardcover/paperbacks anymore. People rely on these stupid gadget things.

I do read books on the Ipad digitally sometimes, but only if I want to read something I don’t want to buy at the store or if I want to read something that’s hard to find.

Just like with CD’s, the digital age is destroying books too. Sad but true. Why do you see more book sales and more used book-shops happening more and more? It’s because there’s a lot of people that still like to read books the old-school way. Some prefer to read an actual hardcover/paperback, and not some digital gadget. You can’t buy old books at the new book stores anymore. If you want to read an old classic you won’t be able to get the original edition at a new bookstore; you would get forced to get it on paperback which is unfair. You would find the original hardcover edition at used bookshops.

Used book shops are totally awesome, and I love going to them.

I’ve been buying more politically, government, history, and war books lately ’cause I’m interested in that stuff. Always has been. I just want to learn more about stuff that I didn’t learn in school. Plus, politics and history is interesting to me. When you see me on the internet being all over politics and history stuff, it’s because I care about my country. I love the USA and take our home seriously. Just listen to my songs people. My songs are just as political. So if you get tired of my political stuff, I don’t care. It’s what I like and I want to teach people things myself.

Kev