This week's doctor visit waiting room

[conuly]

has a rotary bookcase. I want a rotary bookcase. I want several of them, soooooo bad. But I digress. The bookcase was mostly empty, and to be honest, the books were... oddly chosen.

Like, I'm not going to sit in the waiting room and read Twilight. How early did I even get there!? If I wanted to read Twilight, I would've brought my own copy, right? So I could take it with me?

I'm thinking that short stories are more the thing, so I'll run by the Strand and the local used bookstore this week and see if I can get any collections of same for cheap.

All their waiting rooms could use a better selection of magazines, too. Should I ever win the lottery, I know I'll spend a hefty chunk of it donating magazine subscriptions to offices I've had to wait in. (Oddly, the orthodontist has a great selection. National Geographic, Discover, Time, Woman's Day, Time Out New York - there's something for nearly everybody, though he could do with a few kid's subscriptions. Cricket, I guess. I mean, that's mostly his patients, right? I should suggest that next time I go in.)

Oooh, there's a thought. I was going to order a new subscription to the NYTimes and a few other periodicals soon. If the digital + print edition is the same or very close in price to the plain digital edition, maybe I should send the print edition to MSK! I wonder if this counts as charity when mostly I'm the one benefiting. (I wonder if it counts as charity if I implore anybody who has back issues of Cricket or any other Carus magazines to send them my way. I'll read 'em, and then drop them off at the doctor. Or the orthodontist.)

Comments

[oursin]

I have actually inherited a rotary bookcase! - haven't yet arranged to get it from where it is to my place, though. It was originally my maternal grandparents', then my parents'. Wood, four tiers high. I'm still thinking what to put in it (not that it will make much inroad on the tottering book piles, alas). Very tempted to turn some of it into brag shelves of academic works I've written/contributed to.

[conuly]

Brag shelves is a good idea :) You can always resort if you don't like it.

[redbird]

My friend minoanmiss works in a hospital, and periodically asks her local friends for any magazines we're willing to donate for the waiting rooms. What your doctor's office has may be, similarly, the books that the staff or their friends were done with. This is my assumption about the random-looking selection on the bookshelves in the public office/TV room/meeting room in my old apartment building in Bellevue; I eventually looked at the empty space and added a couple of dozen books I no longer wanted. (Nobody was watching to keep people from walking off with books, and I'd be happy to know that someone picked up any of my contributions and took them home, or to the park, to finish.)

[conuly]

I'm certain that's how MSK got their copy of last month's Texas Monthly, but I'm pretty sure they have their copies of The New Yorker delivered.