Saturday, October 22, 2005

Library Book Sale

Continuing my habit of buying far more than I can possibly ever read, I hit the Friends of the Multnomah Public Library book sale. Like a rock show for bibliophiles, the line started about an hour before the doors opened, and yes I was in it. Once in, the room was strangely quite while people sought out books worth the $1.50 price. I got pretty lucky finding Fast Food Nation and Cadillac Desert, both of which I feel guilty for not reading. Now I can feel guilty for owning them and not reading them. On the fiction side, I found Booker Prize short-lister Dirt Music, Jennifer Egan's Look at Me, and a collection of the best book reviews from the Atlantic Monthly. You have to be careful at these things. It's pretty easy to spend a buck or two on a book, but do you really need the book? I run into this problem at the library, where I mindlessly check out everything that looks vaguely interesting and then have to return piles unread. Not the end of the world of course, but it can lead to a nasty reading opportunity cost.

Right now I am reading the sixth Harry Potter, which is quite good, Harry seeming to have dropped the whiny adolescent pose found in book five.

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