I’m an explorer of sorts. I don’t wander around planting flags, but I do wander around and see what I can. I’ve traveled when it was easier to do so, and I still will as I can – but international traveling has become such an annoyance.

There was a time when we didn’t have to take off our shoes and belts at airports, kids, or do digital X-ray pornography for the TSA. In that regard, terrorism won.

Books allow me to keep my belt and shoes on and don’t care how much toothpaste I have in my carry on.

I don’t know how it will be with future generations. Everyone seems too busy chattering away, but I fully expect that when the memes age all that will be left are memories of the Internet detritus. When they get to my age, will they be asking each other if they remember that meme?

For me, I absorb books. I revisit some every few years and sometimes find in the revisiting new things based on what I take with me into the book.

Good books are like that. Good books are worth keeping on a bookshelf as a reference. Good books can be dusty but not dated.

I like books. It’s part of how we distill ideas. I regularly go to bookstores in the hope that I’ll find something worth reading, and only now and then do I find something. Trinidad and Tobago doesn’t seem to be a big market for books and the bookstores reflect that, maybe.

I do miss wandering through a Waldenbooks, or Barnes and Nobles, or any physical bookstore. I’ve spent more time in libraries than in the education system at this point, I’m pretty sure. To me, there’s little that’s better than being surrounded by books.

I was over at Bookshop.org leafing through future books to read. I’m even putting together a little booklist because… well, I was goofing off. It’s not about commissions, it’s about encouraging people to read good books. Commissions generally suck on affiliate sites, and since they are using Stripe, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to collect anything anyway.

Some of my old stuff links to Amazon.com, but they have a stupid policy about affiliate links and accounts. If you happen to move across drawn lines on maps, they require you to have a separate account – and as a digital nomad, that simply doesn’t work very well.

It’s not about commissions. It’s about the ideas in those books and making sure people have a chance to access them easily. If a book is available legally for free, I’m going to point to them.

Project Gutenberg is chock full of books people can get for free, as an example, but erosion of public domain means books that would be available for free before all the Copyright changes are… not. We’ve lost that battle, a battle fought when most people were busy paying attention to other things.

If I refer to a book, it’s because I think it’s worth reading, not worth selling you. You can get it any way you wish, and I’d encourage you to do so – especially at your local library.

Grab the ISBN number, or just the author’s name and the title, and go forth. There are some good ideas out there we need to keep moving through time.

Go visit your local library anyway.