Saturday, July 24, 2010

I Just Want To Read The Book!

I've been reading Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and have been really enjoying it.  It solidifies some of the things I've been learning lately and really drives home the fact that we can obtain any dream if we believe that we can and have a burning desire to obtain it.

As I'm reading through the book I came across a poem that the author references, which after some research I found to be "My Wage" by Jessie Rittenhouse.  It's a fantastic poem, so I'll quote it below.

My Wage
I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.
~ Jessie Rittenhouse
This poem really hit home.  Life is what you make of it.  If you settle for what happens your way and never realize that you can have anything you desire, you're missing out on reaching your full potential.

This brings me to the reason for this post.  I was very interested in finding other Jessie Rittenhouse work and found that he was the editor for two books that seem to be a great collection of work from many authors called "The Little Book Of Modern Verse" and "The Second Book Of Modern Verse".  As I looked through the authors in these collections my heart raced and I knew I had to get these and read them.

Now the first place I would look for such books would be the library.  I've come to learn to use this first as it's the lowest cost option and is an excellent resource.  Unfortunately the library did not have a copy of either collection, in fact none of the libraries in the Library Network (a collection of Michigan based libraries) had it either!  I was a bit disappointed.  In a case like this, my next resource will be Amazon.com or eBay.  I ended up find the first and second collection on Amazon.com, but take a look at the prices, they varied from $20 - $100!

Then I stumbled across the Kindle version of the books on Amazon.  Each of them was listed at $4.99!  What a great deal!

The next thing that crossed my mind was that I didn't have a Kindle to read it on. No worries, Amazon offers the Kindle Reader for PC as a free download.

Since I've been leaning towards picking up a Barnes and Noble Nook, I did a search and was disappointed to find that the Nook did not offer a PC version of their reader, so I may have to pick up the ebooks from Amazon.  This may lead me to end up purchasing a Kindle... nice job Amazon, you may have just pushed your way to the top of the list with this little feature!

I'm about to load the Kindle Reader for PC and I'll let you know how it turns out, but I am very glad that there is an affordable option for me to read these books!

1 comment:

Nadon said...

Kindle Reader for PC was a breeze to install. I was able to purchase the Kindle version of "The Little Book of Modern Verse" and it has some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read. I love coming across a real treasure and I think I've found one.

After you purchase the book from Amazon, you just open up Kindle Reader and it downloads the book. If I get a Kindle, I can transfer the books I've purchased onto the Kindle using WhisperSync. Nice!