Regarding books

Nope, this isn't an entry about baked goods nor broccoli, it's about books, my favourite ones. I buy a lot of books and try to keep up with reading them, but always seem to be enticed by newspaper book reviews to buy more than I can read. And when at the book store, I linger over other books that attract my attention. The only thing that checks my spending is the cost (fancy that :). I recently nestled down at the bookstore to read the first 30 pages of Alice Sebold's 'The Almost Moon', only because it was still marked with its New Release price of $35.

My shelves contain mainly fiction, some sci-fi, a bunch of Lonely Planet guides and a few travel memoirs, only becoming turned off the latter by Frances Mayes' terrible sequel to an already annoying 'Under the Tuscan Sun'.
I buy them because I'm optimistic that if a book is good, I will revisit it over the years and eventually pass it down to whomever. (Also, I have been banned from my local library for over a year and a half now for accidentally-losing-and-then- finding-but-not-yet-returning a book.)

Anyway, most of the books sit on the shelves for years after their first read and I may occasionally revisit them. These aren't likely to be all time favourites but I am still fond of them nonetheless. The books that become fast favourites are the ones that upon finishing, I immediately start reading again. These are the ones where the language and dialogue are astoundingly original without being pretentious, there are no cliches in the story (a classic cliche is the new girl in a big city working for a publishing or fashion house...snore :) and you wished you lived through some or many of the scenes.

So here are the books which I have loved and which will probably fall apart before I bestow them on future readers:

'Neuromancer' by William Gibson
'Three Junes' by Julia Glass
'High Fidelity' by Nick Hornby
'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro
'Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro

Evil book store

Gift vouchers. I delight in receiving gift vouchers as they offer many possibilities to get free stuff I normally would not purchase. Some things suddenly seem an extravagance when faced with the prospect of paying for them myself, certain rare plants for example.
(The opposite is true when giving vouchers, I rarely give them, perhaps this is related to someone once saying that I was a considerate gift giver. Ever since that time, I may have blown their comment out of all proportions and possibly may feel that I need to live up to their long ago compliment-in-passing.)

Recently I was fortunate enough to receive a Borders gift voucher. I have always enjoyed reading and hoard books all over the house and future-read titles on bits of paper all over the house. At the time, I had already ordered a bunch of books from amazon.com, justifying the purchase with the current high exchange rate and of course telling myself that books are always a good purchase and never extravagant (unless they includes titles such as 'Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling Sticker Book' or 'Knitting with Dog Hair: Better a Sweater From a Dog You Know and Love Than From a Sheep You'll Never Meet').

So I hung onto the voucher for a month, telling myself that the online purchases would keep me busy for some time. Well, half way through my first book, with four books unread, I found myself trying to weigh recipe ingredients on a tiny Slimmer's scale (disconcerting that they exist and more so that I somehow came to own one) and noting an opening to visit my local shopping center where Border sits on two levels, I crumbled. With a bit of glee and a (genuine) excuse, I headed out to buy a more accurate set of kitchen scales with my book voucher in hand.

Let me say that I rarely wander shopping centers as a way to pass time. If I need to visit them, I write a list of the things I need and get the heck outta there once I am done. Borders of course is near the car park entrance where I can always find a parking space: how convenient!

'Just a quick look, after all I do have this voucher', I told myself after buying my scales. A few minutes after entering the store, I had just $7 left on the voucher and decided to buy a kids book for D. Kids books are down the escalators and after I picked out 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle I headed back up the escalators, working out that I will only be a little out of pocket.

'Do you want to get 3 for 2 on kids books?', asked the cashier. Do I? Heck yes! Down I went again and picked out another Eric Carle book about 10 rubber ducks and another book containing pictures of farm animals with faux fur inserts.

'If you call this number and provide some feedback you can get 20% off your next purchase', the cashier said as she handed me the receipt. I nodded as she asked whether I wanted to receive offers via email which includes 'savings of up to 40%'. I declined her offer thinking that if I continue getting seduced by discounted books I will be succumbing to that modern day evilness. The evilness akin to queuing 10 minutes for petrol on TA Tuesday for a $1.50 discount or having to eat endless champignon-based recipes due to a lapse in common sense one day at the supermarket: discounted or not, you pay for it in the end.

Then I thought that if I were to partake in evilness, the capitalist clutches of a book store is probably the much lesser kind. Books received in childhood and seen again in adulthood are reminders of something new and of places undiscovered, a wonderment that follows you through the years without you really knowing. Someone (a family member? A teacher?) had fostered in me a want to know and an asking of why and had made it all stick. What a great gift.

So I took back my evil book store thoughts as I left the counter with my stack. Walking out to the car park I reminded myself of the Dr Seuss and Little Golden Books I saw and I filed those titles in my mind under 'Gifts for D - probably at 40% off'.