More books, dang it

Well it looks as if my claim to be the stupidest person on the planet is safe! Why? I went to the used book sale at the Decatur library last week. First, let me remind everyone that I had absolutely no need for more books. I've already got a stack that I'm trying to get through and I've got a bunch of work-related stuff to get through, but I couldn't resist.

I tend to shop a lot at the Decatur library's used book annex and I can't quite decide what the selection of available books says about Decatur's reading habits. On the one hand, I almost always find a non-best seller book or two that really interest me and that makes me think Decatur is a "good reading" town. On the other hand, someone is giving up those great books so that makes me think Decatur is not a "good reading" town. As discussed in the book snob posts, maybe Decatur is a good book buying town, but not a good book reading town. Regardless, I'm pleased that I'm able to find good books cheap. So what did I buy?

I only spent $2 and I didn't see another copy of The Secret History, but I did manage to get some pretty good books:

1. A hardcover copy of The Stand. I used to read some Stephen King and I've always been told that The Stand really is a good book. The problem, though, is that it's approximately 1200 pages and I knew I'd never get through that during a checkout period. I could have bought a copy, but the cheap copies tend to be the mass market paperback and once I managed to read that version of Atlas Shrugged, I swore I'd never read another huge book in that format. Hence, I figured a nice hardback copy was worth 50 cents.
2. An old, oversized copy of The Great Gatsby. I've had my old, mass market copy with the blue cover for years, but this was an older (bigger margins) version.
3. The Dogs of Babel (suggested by Anonymous during the last round of book posts). I'll let you know what I think once I get around to it.
4. Herzog, by Saul Bellow. Got to love Saul and I think this was his best.
5. A big, oversized copy of Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I've read lots of his stuff and this is supposed to be his magnum opus. I once read about 2/3 of this book, but like The Stand, I ran out of time. Now I have my own copy so I figure I'll make it through it.
   

Yep, that was my $2 worth of books. Oh, I saw a couple of Ellen Gilchrist books, but I've already got just about everything she's written. Still, I hated to see them sitting there available for 25 cents each. I ended up sort of forcing them on a woman that was looking at the same table. In my defense, I just pointed them out to her and suggested she read the back covers to see if they sounded interested. I told her that Ellen is one of those "modern Southern female" writers and she said she reads a lot of that stuff, so she just picked them up on my recommendation. Caffeine Brother asked what the woman looked like, but I promise that was not my motivation. I simply wanted someone to pick up those Ellen books so I wouldn't have to. Full disclosure, though, she was a comely lass -- though it went no further than a book recommendation, I promise!

Oh, to make my reading life even more hectic, The Decatur Daily has decided to let me back into their book reviewing clique. I had a conspiracy theory that they were freezing me out since I eviscerated a novel by Marshall Boswell, but evidently they haven't blackballed me. Nope, they are letting me review The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. Now think a minute about how dull this book sounds. Done that? Well it's even drier than you'd imagine! The author has a very basic premise, but he takes 486 pages to present it. I'll let you know more when I finish it, but it's not promising right now.

Okay, I'll get off the book posting for a while. Right now, though, I have to get to work on a test for tomorrow.