used vs. borrowed Sun 12.9.7

I love to read and I’ve acquired a lot of books, however, I realized that of late I hadn’t been reading that much and writers are readers, you have to be. So, I created a goal to address the problem and it kind of came along by osmosis.

I was watching Oprah and learned about an author, Edward P.Jones, he wrote   The Unknown World - this guy was a janitor for years, was laid off from his job and decided to go to work on writing about characters that had been in his head for years. The culmination of his efforts was imagination at its best.  He engineered a fictionalize world that seems to have really happen less than 10 years ago. Imagine that from janitor to Nobel prize winner!

So I decided my reading list would be recent Nobel prize winners and I’d go back 7 years. If you didn’t know 7 is my favorite number.In the meantime I was given a book- The Namesake by my aunt Deb without realizing that it too was on the list.

However, I I heard alot about Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and I really wanted to read that first in addtion to some other things that I was already working on. So I started reading the Road and finished it about a week ago and then jumped into the Namesake and I couldn’t put it down. And, the world that Lahiri creted was amazing -it was fluid, vivid and the characters written with such detail that I looked to pick up that book everytime I had a chance.  It reminded me how much I love suspending reality and getting caught up into another world.

So I finished the book last week and realized that I hadn’t picked out my next book. So I scanned my list and the synopsis of Geraldine Brook’s historical fiction novel called March, intrigued me. Besides, I knew that I hadn’t read anything like it in a while. I look it up on Amazon, it would cost 10 bucks with tax and shipping but I wouldn’t get it for 2-3 days and it was already Thursday. I thought about going to B&N but realized it would be almost double what I’d pay on Amazon.  I thought about going to the used book store and remembered that it closed down. I even thought about checking out a copy to borrow from the library. However, there’s no fun in being limited with a book that you want to claim as yours. Knowing that I would have to return a book after being intimate with it for a week isn’t an idea that I welcome.  Besides, used books may have had a previous owner but are almost in good conditionWith the book that I wanted in mind I just decided to find another means to getting it although I hadn’t specifically figured out how.  So, I took the train home to the bus. Once I got up from the subway and looked towards the bus stop I could tell that one hadn’t show up in a while and it was a bit too cold to wait outside.  I walked down the ave towards home and realized that there was another book store.

I went in and I checked my bag as the sign requested.  For a few moments the book clerk and I were the only ones in the book store. I looked around a bit and then decided to ask her for the authors name of March, because I couldn’t remember it. She looked it up and directed me towards the back. I headed there straight away, up a couple of stairs and through narrow racks of books with room enough to turn around and stretch one arm wide. I scanned a few rows of “B” authors and then I found March in the middle of a stack with the same cover as the one I saw on Amazon. I couldn’t believe it. I took it off the shelf and immediately felt like it was as good as owned by me. Even better was the price of $7.99, just $8 and some change once the tax was added. I had my book in my hand, placed it in my bag and was happy too that I saved 2 bucks. Hey that’s a train ride, a slice of pizza, almost an organic donut, a pack of nuts at work, 2 apples and 4 bananas, 2 bags of peanut M&M’s if I was eating them…I guess food is on my mind, let me get back to finishing this blog. 

Its an understatement to say I was estatic!  I patronized the underdog and you should too. I now could go home and start another adventure. I love used book stores! That could be a blog entry itself but, I  gotta go. Chapter 3 of March is calling me.

cde