Last week, my entire reading list disappeared from blogger. I opened the draft to add something to the list, and suddenly several lines were gone. I tried undo but nothing happened. I tried it again and still nothing happened. I tried it a third time and the entire post draft disappeared!
My usual emergency measure for such things is to quickly close out the post before it autosaves. Then I get a dialog box reminding me that I have unsaved changes, but I close it out anyway and the mistakes aren't saved. This time, no such dialog box appeared and the post closed with my entire list permanently deleted!
Once the disbelief became less acute, I started to wonder what to do. Should I try to reconstruct it? I had three or four dozen physical books, about three dozen audiobooks, and two eBooks on my list. I'm not sure I could remember all the titles; that's why I kept the list.
In pondering this, I had to ask myself what the long-term value is to it. It's kinda fun to do, and kinda fun to compare with others, but it's like keeping monthly weather records in my garden posts. It's time and effort to do, but I rarely reference it later.
Should I start again beginning now? I had to ask myself why I kept a reading list in the first place. Besides being fun, I'm not sure what other benefit I gained from it. For one thing, my interests have meandered in different directions than the theme of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to document our homesteading adventure. But as I mentioned awhile back, our time now is less dominated by homestead experiments and projects, and more influenced by a seasonal routine. When I found myself doing almost identical blog posts at the same time every year, I decided there were more interesting things to do with my time.
I'm still very much interested in homesteading, but I'm no longer reading to collect ideas and information on it. My interests have instead shifted toward the fiber arts and genealogy, especially historical culture studies. I read a variety of fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is mostly historical and for bedtime reading when I don't have to maintain alertness. Much of my nonfiction reading is inspired by the fiction I read. I'm curious about historical accuracy plus the people, terms, and concepts in the story.
For example, earlier this month I (finally) finished Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. It starts in 1799 in India and progresses through Britain's participation in Napoleon's Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo. Historical events were woven into an interesting storyline, and I learned about the culture, customs, military, strategies, and weapons of the time. I learned about Portugal, Spain, and France in the early 1800s plus the people behind the notable events. These aren't topics I have much interest in, but because I enjoy Bernard Cornwell, I tackled the series and learned a lot.
To expand on this, I read other fictional works of the same battles, and was able to compare two authors' treatment of the facts and details. I looked for biographies of the main historical characters and read (or listened to) those. Of those authors, I found other of their works that interested me. For example, after listening to Ida M Tarbell's biographies of Napoleon and Josephine, I listened to her The Business of Being a Woman. It was written in 1912 and not only remains relevant, but it will open the reader's eyes to how far off the deep-end modern day feminism has fallen.
In terms of the origins of my ancestors, I've discovered a number of books written in the 1600s and 1700s that are extremely interesting. Thankfully I've been putting interesting tidbits into a notebook rather than the computer. I won't have to worry about losing them as easily that way.
So that's my tale of woe. It's a good reminder of how precarious it is to rely on a computer to save important information, whether a home device or an online venue. Maybe I'll just start a notebook to record the books I read.
1 comment:
Well, THAT'S frustrating! Yes, things can happen to electronically stored info, just as it can to physical records. Floods, fire, and other disasters destroy people's treasured and/or important records, too. Nothing is guaranteed in this world; best to not hold onto anything TOO tightly.
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