…or, how Kristin fills up future bookshelves without even a thought for the overpopulation problem currently rampant in her literary world.
Even if for no other reason, I can justify having my TJ37 CLIE™ Handheld by employing it as a books-to-be-purchased-list-keeping-device. :) Here is the recent batch of books I ordered:
- The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems by Michael Ondaatje
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
- Americans In Paris: A Literary Anthology edited by Adam Gopnik
- Rooms are Never Finished: Poems by Agha Shahid Ali
- Roget’s Descriptive Word Finder by Barbara Kipfer
- Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn by L.H. himself
- Opium: A History by Martin Booth
- Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist by Patrick McGilligan
I came across the two poetry books (by Ondaatje and Ali), as well as the Paris anthology at one of my favorite book stores (despite their almost complete inability to keep their website up and/or up-to-date, and to put out flyers in a timely manner), The Book Works in the Flower Hill Mall. The best part about them is their knowledgeable staff and their refusal to become, despite their size, an airport bookstore clone, selling the latest Grisham and whatever else is filling the NYT bestseller list. (Ack! Is my snobbishness showing? Please understand: I am not judging what other people should be reading. I am simply saying that, in the same way that I will not let the majority (most sold=bestseller) decide what OS I should use, I will not let them tell me what books I should read, because for the most part, I tend to disagree.…not that I don’t spend some time with guilty pleasures like Mma Ramotswe.) I have become a recent Bill Bryson fan through listening to the unabridged version of A Short History of Nearly Everything. He is a lovely storyteller, who can teach one about phyloplankton and still make it sound like a yarn you’d listen to a favorite uncle spin in front of a blazing fireplace. I have wanted to read all his books, and chose this one to be next because of a budding interest in things Australian. The Roget’s is one of those books I have purchased with an almost religious faith, hoping that the mere possession of it will turn me into a (better) writer. I know that to truly make this happen, I would need to study the book: simply buying a Bible/Bhagavad Gita/Qur’an/Talmud/Dhammapada doesn’t make one holy, after all. Hearn has always been a fascination of mine. He was a dark, mysanthropic man, repeatedly expatting himself in search of a home for his soul. For a long time he found a home in Japan, and the Japanese consider him one of them (as Koizumi Yakumo — an amazing feat, especially over 100 years ago), his writings used in their literature and history classes. The opium and blacklist books are simply to satisfy curiosity. I can’t wait until they all arrive!
Purdy :)
Garbage — you need to post! It’s been OVER a month!
Do it for me! You got me into blogging damnit :P
(gotta love guilt laden comments *smile*)
Okay, i’m gonna keep nudging you to update this thing until you tell me you’re no longer interested in having a blog.
POST! POST! POST!
You have Monday off or havta work?