BOOKS!

Today, I visited my favorite used bookstore (I've been to bigger, but not better.) and the shop that mails (most of) my comics to me, which also sells used books. I didn't go to the third used bookstore I planned on hitting because I thought that I had spent enough money for the day. It's amazing how a pile of books can make me so happy.

Here's the novels I bought and why:
The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
Sure, the last two books he wrote about Mars were pretty bad, but the first two were good and his one off science fiction books are pretty incredible. I highly recommend, if you can find them, Icehenge and The Memory of Whiteness, excellent books. I've been in search of his California trilogy, where he imagines the future of the state in a different way in each book, for a couple of years. I guess I'll just have to give in and buy them new.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Johnny Logic has told me several times that I should read this book and I also really enjoyed the other two Stephenson books I've read, The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (I always include the other title, because it should have been the name of the book.) and Zodiac (A book paced like a summer blockbuster, but better. It's the most fun movie that isn't a movie that I've ever read.). This book is huge! If it's as well written as his others, though, it'll be a quick read for it's size.

1984 by George Orwell
I've never read this book, which is probably as much a surprise to me as it is to some of you, and I've never seen a movie based on it. I know some of the language from it--newspeak, "War is Peace," doublespeak, thoughtcrime--but only in passing. There are so many allusions to this novel in modern films and TV shows--Who didn't think of Big Brother when they saw the High Chancellor appear on that giant TV in V for Vendetta? And how many of those people have actually read 1984?--that I sometimes thing I already know the whole book. It is in the public conscious and I want to know how accurate that conscious is.

The main reason I finally picked this book up is because I just finished re-reading Brave New World (at least my fifth time reading the book) and I wanted to compare its version of the future (which, in many ways, is more a utopia than a distopia) to the future in 1984. I'm pretty excited about that.

As I Lay Dying (The Corrected Text) by William Faulkner
I really wanted Absalom, Absalom! because I really dig that exclamation point at the end. Who, at almost any point in history, puts an exclamation point in the title of a novel? William Faulkner, that's who. The bookstore didn't have Absalom, Absalom!, though, and as I was perusing his novels I came across this one and it seemed more like short stories as opposed to a novel. I like the Faulkner short stories I've read and figure it's time for me to move into something bigger, but not too big.

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
I need a new fantasy series. Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series is supposed to end in one or two books (I'm hoping for two more because 13 is an important number in the series). Terry Brooks keeps putting out Shannara books, but the last two trilogies have seemed liked cheats to me (They cheat in the same way Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy cheats.) and that bugs me. I'd rather Brooks wrote another Magic Kingdom of Landover or Word/Void book than another Shannara book. I can only hope that his pre-Shannara/post-Word/Void novel, that comes out later this month, is better than the last two Shannara trilogies.

Anyway, there are, I think, ten Sword of Truth books out there, so if this first one is any good I'll soon be at another used bookstore looking for the rest of the series.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Like 1984 I've never read this book and I've never seen the movie, but know a lot about it. I had a creative writing teacher who thought this book was the greatest piece of writing... ever. I didn't like that teacher, but he did tend to make good suggestions when it came to short stories and novels.

Platitudes by Trey Ellis
The cover caught my attention and when I read the back it seemed like it could be funny. Plus, it was cheap. The last book I bought in this way, Hey Nostradamus! (ECLAIMATION MARK IN THE TITLE!) by Douglas Coupland, was an excellent find and an introduction to an excellent writer. I hope this one will work out in the same way.

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume One: Cardassia and Andor by Una McCormack (Cardassia) and Heather Jarman (Andor)
Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Two: Trill and Bajor by Andy Mangles & Michael A. Martin (Trill) and J. Noah Kym (Bajor)
Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Three: The Dominion and Ferenginar by David R. George III (The Dominion) and Keath R.A DeCandido (Ferenginar)
All the DS9 books that were written after the show ended actually take place after the series. Things change. Characters grow. Worlds expand. And these books will help to give me the Star Trek fix I need to function in life. The only thing that would have made finding these books more exciting is if Andrew Robinson had written the Cardassia section.

Things I wanted, but didn't find:
Anything by Douglas Coupland that I haven't read.
Another copy of A Confederacy of Dunces because when I went to re-read it, it fell apart. It's now in three pieces and the tape I put on it didn't hold.
The Neon Bible, John Kennedy Toole's other novel.
Anything by Michael Chabon I haven't read.
A Long Way Down.
The DS9 novels The Lives of Dax, Mission Gamma: Cathedral, Mission Gamma: Lesser Evil, The Left Hand of Destiny Book 1, The Left Hand of Destiny Book 2, and Warpath. I'm a DS9 junkie, I know it.

I like books.
Books, books, books.
I like owning them.
I like reading them.
I like smelling them; especially the old, musty ones, but I also like the used ones that smell a little smokey because then I know a little about the previous owner.
I like talking about them.
I like writing about them.
I like holding them.
I like piling them on the floor because I can't find room on a shelf.
And if I knew a good song about books, I'd like singing about them.
I like books.
Books, books, books.