35 posts tagged “books”

Now then.

Several months ago, I entered a book drawing on Emily's blog.  Yes, I got a book:  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  It was nice to read Amy Tan; her books were on my list of "things to read when I get a chance...and that chance may not happen for months."  I can't say it was one of my favorite books of all time (sorry, Emily!), but it did a really neat job of pulling me into China, as it was incredibly well-researched.

Cooler by far than the book, though, was the notion of someone I knew only through the Internet sending moi a book "just because."  (Oh, and the Strand bookmark was an absolutely brilliant touch.  She couldn't possibly know that The Strand is one of the places I want most to visit, but it is, and the bookmark and accompanying note will be a treasured keepsake in this bibliophile's scrapbook.) 

Huh, thought I.  I'm going to have to steal this idea at some point.  Emily okayed my borrowing of the idea, and so here goes.

On October 11, I will have been blogging for two years, and I'd like to celebrate it by giving you a book.

Now, I don't have a sitemeter, and I know that Vox requires registration for comments (something which is annoying, I realize).  Therefore, I don't know how many people read my blog regularly, but I don't think that there are that many.  Still, I'm afraid that I don't see a way to give each and every one of you a book.  Sorry!  :( College student budget, and all that.

I do want to offer some books, though.  I've kept an eye out at library sales/Goodwill/various and sundry book stores and I came up with five fairly diverse books that I thought my "public" might like.

Want a book?  Here's what you do:

1) Write a comment to this post saying that a) you want a book, and b) list the books in order of most to least wanted.

2) Check back on Sunday the 4th (ie, a week from today), when I will post the names of the winners.  If I don't have a sufficient number of comments to begin book distribution by then, then I will a) be quite depressed (and we can't have that!) and b) extend the deadline by another couple of days. 

3) PM me your real name and mailing address, not forgetting to write said mailing address with whatever line-breaks are usual for your country's postal service.  For example, if I were to PM my address I would write:

UbiCaritas' Real Name

123 Diva Lane

Cowtown, TX 11111

U.S.A.

Doing this will mean that I will not irritate some postal clerk by having three incorrectly addressed international packages.  As they handle the mail, 'tis best to keep them happy.  Also, it will teach me how to write addreses for your postal area--certainly a bonus!  (Yes, I do mean that seriously.  Learning new things is good.)

4) Get your book, read it, and let me know what you think!

I will ship internationally, as at least half my readers and commenters aren't in the U.S.  Please be advised that I will also ship via book rate/media mail/whatever is cheapest to your country/state, so it may take a while for the book to arrive.

While you will need to send me your name and address, I promise not to share such information with anyone.  Period, full stop, end of statement.  Remember, while I do have my picture up on here I would not care to have my name associated with this blog; there is far too much personal, school and work information on here.  (Unless you're a book agent, in which case PM me about having me write a book about my crazy stories.)  Seriously, though: no personal info I receive will be shared with anyone. 

Are you a new reader?  Post a comment!

Are you a long-time reader?  Post a comment!

Are you someone I know in "real life", having met outside the blogosphere?  Post a comment!  (Do note, however, that I may simply drop a package on your doorstep rather than mail it to you if you're in or about the Fort Worth area.)

I'll use a random number generator to pick names and books.  Depending on the number of entries, that random number generator may become "a hat" if it seems easier to me.  My blog, my rules, blahblahblah.

I would also appreciate a comment about what you like on here and what you'd like to see more or less of.  I guarantee nothing, mind you--but I would like some general feedback, and the offer of Free Stuff seems like as good a time as any to ask for it.

What am I giving away?

 

 

First off, I have a paperback copy of Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.  This is a novel, and it is really one of the most beautiful and heart-rending fictional depictions of music and opera and humanity I've ever read.  This is a decidedly "read" copy; I picked it up at a library sale, and it has a few dogeared pages and slight yellowing of the edges.  Still, it's perfectly readable, and I recommend it highly to anyone who enjoys a very well-written story. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next is a hardcover copy of People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.  Brooks won a Pulitzer for March, her novel about the father of the Little Women of Louisa May Alcott (see below).  In my opinion, People of the Book is much better.  This novel tells the (fictionalized) story of the Sarejevo Haggadah, a real-life manuscript which has survived Inquisitions, bombings, fires and Nazis for the last five hundred years.  It speaks of the people who risked everything to save the book and the people associated with it, and it speaks to the heart of a bibliophile.    This is definitely in my top five favorite books I've read this year; thanks, big diva, for recommending it to me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mentioned March above.  I purchased this book (hardcover, quite good condition) after reading People of the Book.  I was, in truth, disappointed.  My opinion may have been colored by my adoration of the book Little Women.  This does not exactly follow the story as Alcott wrote it, though much of it is written quite well and believably.  To me, though, it didn't have the magic of People of the Book.  Clearly the Pulitzer folks disagreed with me, as this book won the Pulitzer Fiction prize, but....

In any case, I expect that someone out there will want it.

 

 

 

 

 

  

This is a bit of a diversion from the usual fare discussed on this blog, but it's a neat little book nonetheless.  This is a small hardcover volume (in very good condition) of Yeats' early love poems.  Should someone ever want to court Yours Truly, he'd find his task considerably easier if he had a familiarity with this:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with gold and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Beautiful, no?  Surely you want this on your bookshelf?

 

 

Finally, I bring to you a (paperback, about as "read" as Bel Canto) mystery: to wit, Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  This is not your typical all-too-cutesy mystery.  This is a lovingly crafted book filled with glorious Botswana scenes and settings and people...and yes, the odd mystery here and there.  Smith grew up in Botswana, and while he writes an entertaining and pleasant story, the whole of it is permeated with his love for Africa and the people thereof.  You don't want to miss this series...and this is the perfect way to start it!

 

 

 

 

Good luck, my various and assorted (dozen) readers!  May fortune favor those in need of a new book to read!

 

 

I mentioned that I've purchased a copy of Letter From New York.  Yes, it's pure Hanff, and yes, I love it.

I do not love the smell.

You see, the person who owned before me was unquestionably an interesting person.  She was a lover of used books, too, and of all things English.  Indeed--and this cracks me up no end--she noted on the flyleaf that she ordered this book from "A Common Reader" of London and received it on December third of 1998.  Unless, of course, she used European dating, in which case she got it on March twelfth.  What cracks me up about this is that the book she received (used) is the American edition, meaning that someone over there purchased it from a shop here or bought it on a trip or something similar and then sold it to the shop in London, which then sent it back over here.  It's a well-travelled boook--far better travelled than its present owner, I'm sorry to say.

The thing is...Ms. Elaine M. Patrick, whoever she may have been, and may she rest in peace if she's passed along to the Great Bookshop In The Sky, smoked.

When I say "smoked," I don't think that I imply the full and wretched horror of the stink rising from this book.

You can smell it across a ROOM.  You can't eat while reading it, or your food tastes like stale cigarette smoke.  You have to wash your hands madly after reading it, because otherwise your hands reek and you can't bear to have them near your face.  Oh, and I don't know if this is just the staleness of the cigarette smoke, but the book also smells like someone puked all over it.  No stains or water (vomit?) damage, mind you.  Just that sour smell that completes the bouquet of stale cigarette smoke.

And yet...I can't send it back to the bookseller with the customary stiffly and icily polite-but-disappointed note because of that inscription.  Ms. Patrick, I think, would like her book to go to someone who loved it as much as she did, and I love the notion of owning an American book that was brought to England and then sent back here.

I've already tried wiping it down with a solution of vinegar and water.  There was a slight--and I do mean SLIGHT--improvement.

I have read that wrapping the book in newspaper with newspaper between the pages absorbs odors from the paper.  I think I'll try that tomorrow...perhaps even prop it in my window to get some sun.

Until then, I'll be reading with a clothes pin on my nose.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.

 

 

Isn't that title magnificent?

I very nearly bought this book for the title alone, but I did skim a page or two before slapping it down and saying "I'll take it!"  I must say, however, that I'd never have purchased it if it weren't for the title.  A customer requested it months ago, and the title stuck firmly in my brain.  Today, I desperately needed something to read, and so I purchased The Elegance of the Hedgehog as I left work.

I also must say that I don't understand all of it.  The author is very philosophical, and has a tendency to go on about thinkers for a page at a time.  That's nowhere near as disturbing or annoying as it might be.  Somehow, it fits this book.

If you like to laugh about upper class snobbery and read about Japanese simplicity and would enjoy spending time in the company of a French concierge who is extremely art-and-music conscious but must maintain proletarian facade while making snarky side comments about the insanely rich young university students yakking about how reading Marx has changed their lives, man....go read the book.  Oh, and the concierge (to the distress of the building's other residents, natch) becomes friends with a young genius who lives in the building and whose suicidal adolescent genius angst is perfectly tempered by the concierge's dry public maturity and private uncertainties.

Furthermore, the author has described the effect of music better than ever I could.  In the following paragraph, the 12-year-old genius is listening to the choir at her school perform, and observes:

"Every time, it's the same thing.  I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing.  So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it's just too much emotion at once: it's too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing.  I'm no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir.

When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant.  It is so beautiful.

In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song." (p. 184-185, The Elegance of the Hedgehog)

I think I've found my monthly book to recommend.  One brief note: this book is translated from the original French.  Therefore, it never had a hardcover debut in America, as it was, I believe, translated to English and sold in America after European success.  I bought it in paperback.  I considered very briefly spending the money to have it shipped in hardcover from England, and decided that I'd rather not spend the money for the book and the ridiculous shipping only to not know if I'd even like it or want it in my library.  This book stays.  Furthermore, I can think of at least two people to whom I'd like to give this book for birthdays or Christmas.

UbiCaritas gives this book two thumbs up and five stars.

 

 

Shewhoquilts came over last night.  I ended up making the curry and a tomato-avocado salad in balsamic vinegar on the side.  Dessert was coffee and biscotti.  Simple, yet oh-so-good.  I was going to make a cake, but then I sprained my knee while vacuuming.  Normal people trip on the vacuum cleaner or fall downthe stairs when off-balanced by the vacuum cleaner...not I.  I tripped over the floor and the wall  (I don't know how.  Maybe I wasn't expecting them to be there?) and heard a distinct "pop".  I do not like that sound.  Neither did my knee.  One elastic knee brace plus one bag of ice plus cashier duty for a few days, here I come. 

As a side note, shewhoquilts insists that I "do not have too many books."  Such a wise woman.  I will not take this opportunity to order more (I have five waiting to be read, and if I end up seeing a doctor for this knee I would regret spending the money) but I will bear that in mind for future book purchases. :P

In the meantime, what have I purchased?

 

 

I mentioned a month or two ago that I would like to read some Heinlein but that I drew a firm line at spending upwards of $30 on a single hardcover title.  (Heinlein is relatively early scifi, and a lot of that genre was never--or hardly ever--published in hardcover.)  I also generally dislike "collection"-style books.  However, I broke down and ordered this when a fantastic deal came up on one of my booksites.  Including shipping, it was less than $8, and I will now be able to read Have Spacesuit, Will Travel; Starship Troopers; and Podkayne of Mars.  Excellent.  Depending on how this goes, I may pick up his other omnibuses. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ann Patchett wrote Bel Canto, which is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and almost certainly the saddest book I've ever read.  Because of my respect for Bel Canto, I purchased this a few days ago while it was on a clearance of sorts.  If it's anything like Bel Canto, I may have to pick up some more of her books.  I read Bel Canto last year sometime; it wore me out, but in a good way.  It was just so intense that I couldn't pick up another of her books until now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I picked this up, too, also at a clearance.  A number of people may be familiar with the story of the Indianapolis because it was mentioned by Quint in the film Jaws.  This book delves into the experience of the men in the water, the reasons why they weren't even missed for days, etc.  Should be an interesting read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also purchased a book of Emily Dickinson's poetry for about $4.  I bought it for two reasons: one, I don't own any of her poetry and she's considered a classic author, and two, the book is a really lovely book: the paper is high-quality and slightly glossy, the book is heavy and well bound.  There's just one problem: I've since tried to read some of her poems, and I can't stand them.  They strike me as simperingly gooey; the experience was not unlike being trapped in a small room with a little old lady force-feeding me caramel syrup and reading poems about her cat, Fluffy, who died twenty years ago and to whose memory she remains faithful.  I guess I'll have to try them again later this week to see if that was a mood I was in rather than the poetry, and if I still don't like them I'll shelve them for a few years and then see what I think.

My carry-around-with-me book this week is Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I am rereading for approximately the fifty-seventh time.  I love this book.  I can always see the salon of the Nautilus as clearly as if I'd been there.

Finally, I'm reading a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe collection, and I think I'm in love with Archie Goodwin.  I

I had a Bookseller First yesterday.

A bit over a week ago, I had a customer approach me and request that I find or order a certain book for her.  We didn't have it in stock (I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember the title now), but she wasn't in a hurry to read it, so I placed an order.  Having done so, she asked for a recommendation.

Recs are tough.  A lot of people want to read a new book or new genre, but when it's actually placed in their hand they get cold feet.  Fear of the unknown, perhaps?  Who knows?

Anyway, glancing at her basket of books, I made a strong plug for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  One of the benefits of this book is that it has a thoroughly memorable title; people do not forget it!  She said that it sounded interesting, but that she wasn't inclined to get it because it had been promoted by the corporate office of The Bookstore in their "Suggestions" newsletter, and that she'd never liked any of the titles they featured.

"Bluntly speaking, ma'am," said I, "I never have either.  Frankly, I can only chalk up their recommendation of this book to a clerical error or one of their reviewers getting drunk some night and sending off an email about it.  Their selections are usually cover-to-cover angst-ridden drivel.  That being said, when this book came out I did two things that I haven't done before or since: I purchased one of their recommended copies, and I did so when it went bestseller.  I haven't regretted it for a moment, and I've reread it at least once since I purchased it."

She agreed that she'd consider getting it, and then changed the subject.  I thought nothing more of this until yesterday evening, as I suggest titles to customers all the time.

She came back yesterday evening, and came up to my register.  I opened my mouth to give my usual hi-how-are-you-did-you-find-everything-you-needed-do-you-have-a-savings-card spiel.  Instead, she started the conversation.

"Oh, you're that bookseller who recommended that potato peel pie book to me!  I came back earlier this week but you weren't here.  I just wanted to let you know that I LOVED that book!  Thanks so much for suggesting it!  Do you have any other recommendations?"

I have given hundreds of books recommendations to people in the last year and a half at The Bookstore.  Of those hundred, I expect that a few dozen actually picked up the book.  Until yesterday, not one has ever come back and told me if they liked it, much less asked for another recommendation.

I am happy.

Three guesses as to what the next rec was, and the first two don't count.

Yep.

You guessed it.

84 Charing Cross Road.

My "fun-reading" has been cut drastically in the last few weeks.  I've just been (cue Greek chorus here, as this is an oft repeated cry) too busy.

Correspondingly, the list of books I want to read next is growing exponentially.

What I've read recently:

I've just finished some of the Miss Read Fairacre and Thrush Green series.  Deep?  No.  They are pleasant, though, and who can help but want to read more about Joseph Coggs?  I've met few children that I actually like, but I like kids like Joseph: scrappy, tough, kind, responsible.  Besides, Miss Read's comments on village life are ones that make me giggle.  Maybe you'd have to have lived in a small village once yourself to understand.  Maybe not. In any case, I do like her writing.

Saturday night, I finished Dean Koontz's From the Corner of His Eye.  Dean Koontz is perhaps a little deeper than Miss Read, but there's a limit to how deep you can get when you're writing about singleminded monsters and once-abused individuals who rise above their circumstances by making pies.  I love the way that Koontz takes such characters and has them reach the sublime via that which is, after all, really important: golden retrievers, chocolate ice cream, great books, and pie-related masterpieces.

Right now, I'm reading The Princess Bride.  I've been told by at least half a dozen people whose taste in books I respect that My Life Will Not Be Complete unless I read The Princess Bride.  So far, I like it.  I don't think that it will be in my top ten (or twenty) favorite books, but I do like it.  William Goldman has been added to my list of authors with whom I'd like to share a cake and a pot of tea and a lot of good conversation and laughter.  (That list is a blog post all to itself.)

What I am going to read soon (ish):

Sitting on my to-be-read shelf are the last two Helene Hanff (of 84 Charing Cross Road fame--see, I knew I could work that book into this post!) books that I have yet to read.  One is Underfoot in Show Business, and the other is Apple of My Eye.  The first title is fairly self-explanatory: Hanff spent most of her years in New York writing plays--or trying to, at least, and this is her story.  I know already that it won't be as good as 84 or Duchess, but I still want to read it.  The second is her version of an illustrated book on New York, complete with Hanff-isms galore.  I opened it at random when it arrived in my mailbox, and read that she detested the Metropolitan Museum of Art because she loved Central Park.  I can't fathom why the one means the other, but I do know that it took a superhuman effort to leave that book on the to-be-read shelf until I've a) finished some algebra homework, b) studied for music literature, and c) finished The Princess Bride. I do want to know why she loathed the MMA, as it's one of my favorite places in the world.  I was there once and fell promptly and irrevocably in love.

On a completely different note, I've decided that my familiarity with science fiction has been sorely neglected.  This has much to do with reading From the Corner of His Eye; Robert Heinlein's work is featured prominently in that story.  Therefore, Starship Troopers, Podkayne of Mars, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel are on the to-be-read-soon list.  Evidentally, one cannot simply get a hardbound copy of each of these for a dollar plus shipping: think more in the $25 per book range.  I will, therefore, sacrifice my opinions about collection-style volumes of works and purchase Outward Bound, as this contains all of the above and can be purchased for a mere $3 or so plus shipping.

(I know that most earlier scifi was published in paperback only, but surely forty years after the fact the classics should be available in hardcover at cheaper prices?  Ah, well.)

Furthermore, I want to reread Paradise Lost.  I read it once, but I know I didn't come within a hundred miles of appreciating it, though I can tell you from experience that the entire poem can be sung to the tune of the Coca-Cola song.

 

So the to-be-read-soon list is as follows:

Underfoot in Show Business (Helene Hanff)

Apple of My Eye (ditto)

Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)

Podkayne of Mars (ditto)

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (ditto)

Paradise Lost (John Milton)

 

As varied a list as I've ever seen.

 

 

None of these qualify for a full-length letter, but...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Sir/Madam,

I realize that you don't like Sarah Palin.  Congratulations.  You are entitled to your opinion.  Such is the country in which we live.  I really don't give an intoxicated iguana what your political views are, provided that you don't make me listen to them.

However, this business of taking books from various sections of the store and covering the books about Governor Palin with various other titles Must Cease.

By doing so, you are not preventing her from running for re-election (or for another public office).  Nor are you changing her mind (or anyone else's) on a wide variety of topics.  You are simply assuring yourself of an Unpleasant Fate when we booksellers find out who you are.  You see, the nuisance here is threefold: first, if someone does wish to purchase a book about Governor Palin, it is difficult for us to find such a book if it is covered by another.  I'm sure that's your intention.  However, it means that we may lose a sale and will lose a good deal of patience when we try to find one of the twelve copies we supposedly have in stock.  Secondly, the book you have used to obscure the Alaskan governor's smirk does not belong there.  Oftentimes, you simply grabbed it from a shelf.  If we look for that inoffensive title for a customer, we won't find it, either.  Again, a possible lost sale, and certainly an annoyed bookseller.  Finally, when we do discover this, it will be after we close and as we are tidying up the store.  It makes more work for us (yet another book to be filed properly), and the bookseller who looked for both the Palin title and the obscuring title will be taking your name and political affiliations in vain.

In short: grow up.

 

UbiCaritas

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Dear Sir/Madam,

You may be a fellow bookseller, in which case you should be booted straight to a special circle of Hades for this stunt as you would have a fairly good idea just how much extra work you have made for bookstore employees across the nation.  If you aren't a bookseller, then you're just a sadistic little troublemaker.  Either way, I hope you fall into a fire ant nest after dropping a jar of honey over yourself.

Apparently you decided that it would be ever-so-cute to prop a book about monkeys on a display featuring books by and about our current president.  Better yet, you could photograph this title in such a display as PROOF that a large bookselling chain (Barnes & Noble, in this case) is RACIST and must be BOYCOTTED IMMEDIATELY (I quote from the nationally-circulating email you so kindly sent out) because of COURSE the corporate offices of such a chain would be so patently stupid as to planogram something like that (after donating the maximum allowable amount to the president's election campaign, but I digress).

Ergo, bookstores (the big chains, and some privately owned stores) all over the country have instructed their booksellers to routinely check all Obama displays for such defacement.  Because, you know, in the current short-staffed climate we haven't enough to do without regular checks of the seven different Obama displays in the store.

Go cuddle a grizzly bear, why don't you?

 

UbiCaritas

 

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Dear Sir/Madam,

I don't know why you insist upon leaving opened-to-the-centerfold Playboy and Penthouse magazines and The Illustrated Guide to Gay Sex in the children's department.  (The latter was tucked neatly behind a book on a display, so an unsuspecting individual would pick up the children's book and get an eyeful.)  In fact, I probably don't want to know.  However, if I catch you in the act of doing so I shall turn you over to the ex-Air Force Bible-thumping Southern Baptist supervisor who is nearing retirement.  I'm sure he won't mind retiring a few months earlier than originally planned, and I'm equally sure that he'd enjoy spending five minutes with you in the parking lot before the police arrive.  Heck, most of the booksellers (who ordinarily couldn't disagree with this supervisor more on matters religious and political) would probably cheer him on.

May you try such a stunt in front of that nice police officer who brings his kids by the store to pick out books every weekend. 

 

UbiCaritas

 

(And before you ask--no, we're pretty sure it isn't the occasional curious kid doing this.  It's happening too darn regularly, and some of the stuff is stored sufficiently out-of-kid reach that it is highly unlikely that a kid would keep getting their paws on it.)

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Dear Sir*,

Certain of our booksellers are occasionally asked to dress up as characters from children's books for our weekend Story Time.  As the costumes tend to be on the smaller side, the person within the costume is usually a female bookseller.

I have a recommendation for you.

Before you make a comment on the "bangability" of the young-enough-to-be-your-daughter bookseller wearing the costume (she has taken off the mask in order to reassure a small child), I would strongly suggest that you ensure that the person to whom you are speaking isn't that bookseller's father.

Just a suggestion, you understand.  Take it or leave it as you see fit.

 

UbiCaritas

*This one didn't happen recently or at my store.  Another bookseller told me about the incident, and it struck me as sufficiently humorous that I had to pass it on.  The story previous reminded me of this one.

May I quote from the jacket cover of Christmas Stalkings, a collection of mysteries gathered and contributed to by Charlotte MacLeod?

"When the days grow short and cold weather forces cranky people together in cramped quarters, certain persons often turn to thoughts of getting rid of all the other people and having the fireside to themselves.

When it becomes necessary to deplete the bank accounts through the purchase of gifts for disliked neighbors, despised employers, and thoroughly hated relatives, certain persons contemplate purchasing instead large economy-sized packages of arsenic.

The enforced gaiety of the Yuletide season only strengthens the belief (again, of certain persons) that if only the wife--husband, mother-in-law, doddering aunt--could be suddenly electrocuted by the Christmas tree, how much more jolly things could be!"

(giggling)

 

Ignoring details like budgets/reading time (or near-complete lack thereof)/space constraints...

let me present to you allbookstores.com.  Want to buy a book, but don't want to spend time shopping around for the best price online?  Want to be able to search most used book stores--from abebooks to B&N to ALibris to Half.com--without actually having to, well, y'know, search?

Go to AllBookStores, enter your search criteria, and click "Search."

You'll get a list of the prices--listed low-to-high--for the book you are seeking from all of (and more than) the above stores.

Of course, I am not buying more than one book a week until the Hood County Friends of the Library Sale.  This is a sore temptation, but I will be strong.  I shall triumph.  And my bookshelves will groan after the last weekend in April.

You haven't heard of Hood County, Texas?  I'm shocked.  Shocked, I say. :P

In point of fact, there is little reason for y'all to be familiar with it.  Unless, of course, you are a nutty collector of books, in which case their library book sale is positively drool-inspiring.

One of the larger cities in Hood County (and probably, if I bothered to look it up, the county seat) is Granbury.  Granbury is the standard small and somewhat historic Texas town.  A large number of older people retire from Dallas/Fort Worth to Granbury and the surrounding areas.

Oooookay, you might think.  Why on earth is a town comprised of a high percentage of retirees of interest to this culture-loving (and I do not mean Dolly Parton) diva?

Simple.

Retirees eventually, well, pass on.

Leave this sphere.

Depart this mortal coil.

Go to the great roundup in the sky.

And they can't take their books with them. 

Their relatives, the majority of whom, it seems, care not a lick for books, nearly always donate the deceased's books to the library.

The library then sells those books for $1 for hardbacks, and fill-a-box-for-$5 on the last day.  Provided that you don't care about getting the latest John Grisham, you can still get some fantastic reads on that last day.  Howesomever, if you'll join the Hood County Friends of the Library ($10 towards the support of a library--I'm all for it!), you can get in a day early and snatch up all sorts of goodies that might otherwise walk off with someone else.  Think about it: A Fitzgerald translation of the Iliad: $1.  The Harvard Dictionary of Music: $1.  Various mysteries: $1 apiece. Etc, etc, etc.

An expedition from Fort Worth to the wilds of Granbury is being planned for that weekend.  Details (and who knows, perhaps some actual pictures?) to follow.

Therefore, I'm restraining myself to one book purchase per week until then. 

 

*like I need a hole in the head.

 

Oh, SUCH an original title. 

And yes, I need to be studying algebra right now.

However...

Books I'm reading/ordering/will read/et all:

 

The Jasper Fforde Thursday Next series:

Jasper Fforde has that wry, literary, tongue-in-cheek sort of humor that one might expect if you crossed Terry Pratchett with Harry Potter and threw in an old-fashioned librarian just for kicks.  I'm slooooowly working through the series after picking up Something Rotten at Half Price Books a few weeks ago for $4.  It's a sort of literary-scifi-fantasy-adventure cross.  How can you not read a book that features Mrs. TiggyWinkle and Emperor Zhark as SpecOps agents?  (Featured paraphrased quote: "My name strikes terror into the heart of billions, but can I get my collars properly starched? Noooooo!")  Or a series in which characters such as Hamlet can jump into real life in order to have identity crises?  I ask you.

Start off with The Eyre Affair, and work your way through the next four.  He also has a Nursery Crimes series (introduced in Thursday's The Well of Lost Plots) which features, natch, Detective Jack Spratt.  Haven't picked those up yet, but if they are to the level of Thursday Next, they're well worth it.

 

 

 

 

Having read The Eyre Affair, I had, of course, to rerererereread Jane Eyre.  As usual, it was even better than I remembered and I understood or saw more nuances that I did in the last reading.  If you haven't read it, then do so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, thanks to Mr. Fforde and Ms. Bronte, I decided to try Jane Austen yet again.  (I was forced to read Pride and Prejudice at nine or ten, and have held a strong--oh, I can't resist--prejudice against Austen ever since.)  Ergo, I ordered Sense and Sensibility, and it should be here this week: