Spent birthday money that I didn’t have yet and still might not get next week at Borders a few days ago. A combination of factors made me splurge the last few precious dollars that I have. First and foremost, nearly six months of unemployment had exhausted my stack of unread fiction that all I had left was a stack of unread non-fiction. Second, I had five Borders Buck and a 30% off coupon for this month. Third, spending $50 USD will earn another five Borders Buck for next month. I managed to save $10 USD and picked up a half-dozen books.
I normally don’t shop in a bookstore unless I have the right financial incentives to buy locally over ordering through Amazon. While browsing through Borders and recalling what books I had stashed away in my Amazon shopping cart, I actually found more books that weren’t there than the ones that I did find. Seems like the entire midlist of books has been thinned out to a bare minimum. A friend told me that the CD/DVD selection at the San Francisco store was nonexistent. Worse, the Santa Row store is doing another reorganization to make sure you can’t find anything even if they did have it.
The redeeming grace was one of the clerks noticing that I had a stack of books in one hand and reading the first page of a book in the other hand, who brought over a shopping bag for me to throw everything in. Seriously, I only intended to get a Harry Potterbook when I went into the store. If I buy a half-dozen or more books at a time, I usually order through Amazon to take advantage of the four-for-three promo and free shipping.
Here’s the summer reading list.
- “Blue Diablo (Corine Solomon, Book 1)” by Ann Aguirre
- “Inferno (Star Wars, Legacy of The Force, Book 6)” by Troy Denning
- “Original Sin (Adam Dalgliesh)” by PD James
- “A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time, Book 7)” by Robert Jordan
- “The Secret of The Old Clock / The Hidden Staircase (Nancy Drew)” by Carolyn Keene
- “Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix (Book 5)” by JK Rowling
The common thread that ties all these books together is my own writings; the rough draft of my second novel that I’m composing now, and my first novel that I’m planning to edit in October. I want to read a wide variety of different stories and writing styles to create a magical brew to incorporate into my own work. This stack should keep me entertain for another month or two.
NOTE: This blog post was first published on Once Upon An Albatross… blog.