I have to admit that I hate going into book stores. I suppose it's the same way pet lovers hate going to pet stores: it's that absolute need to leave with something.
So when I found myself in Red Emma's yesterday perusing through histories of Spanish anarchy, I knew I'd be leaving with something. I was tempted to pick up some of those anarchist histories, but I meandered over to their fiction section instead. There I found Borges' Labyrinths, Phillip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion and a complete copy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. I was tempted to pick up the massive Metamaus, the supplementary volume to Art Spiegelman's Maus (of which I now own a beautifully bound complete volume), but I figured my chances of actually reading all of it were pretty slim, so it stayed on the shelf for another day.
Much perusing, dragging of feet and $52 later, I walked back out into the midday traffic on St. Paul street feeling pretty upbeat about my purchases. One of the greatest short story collections of all time, another Phillip K. Dick book (always something to be happy about) and one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Yes please. Plus, while I've been picking my way through Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City, I've also been sending up some pretty bad literature karma by reading Ian Flemming's original Dr. No, with all of its terrible writing and thinly veiled racism. I suppose if you're going to read something trashy, summer is the time to do it.
So off I go to spend these beautiful, glorious summer days the way they were meant to be spent: inside, reading. Time to get my literature karma back on track.
- Kid
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