I was doing some winter cleaning the other day. I don’t do spring cleanings.
Besides removing a ton of dust and a pile of receipts from Walgreens, Starbucks, HEB, and a half-dozen other places I found about 20 books scattered round my room. Books I’d picked up on a whim at places like Barnes and Noble or at half price books and just had not read at all.
I love to browse round bookstores for a long time. Usually when I shop I head in at breakneck speed and go directly for what I want but looking for books is different. One of the few times I take time to dawdle and promenade up and down the isles looking at books from one genre to another. I specially like to linger in places like half price books. The place feels like a kitschy flea market. You never know what you will find from one visit to another.
I will get the book that I came in for but I usually pick up 2 or 3 other titles. That’s the problem. Since these aren’t the books I came in looking for I will bring them home and lay them aside here and there and six months later I have a small library of unread books that aren’t exactly what I like but I picked up for some reason that now escapes me.
Some selected titles?
“A model world” by Michael Chabon. Admittedly an interesting writer but I have no clue why I picked up this small volume of short stories.
“Galactic derelict” by Andre Norton. I possibly picked this up because I read her stuff back in college but that was for a totally different storyline.
“Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”. One of those books that I “should” have already read but haven’t.
“1491” by Charles Mann. A sort of Atlas and history book of the Americas before Columbus
So now I’ve got all these books to read and no excuse to buy anything else till I finish these off but to be totally honest, some of these I really don’t want to read. I’m thinking of just tossing them in the box of books to be returned to half price books without reading them. But I think I will give them a glance at least.
Something made me buy them in the first place so there has to be some good in them.
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