Ahhhhh, free time. I got to do a wonderful thing today: I went to my local Borders
and actually hung out, with no time pressure to leave. I didn't buy a thing,
though I might been less strong-willed had they had the latest of Diane Duane's
Young Wizards books. It was wonderful, though. I got to check out Barbara Hambly's
latest Benjamin January mystery and a couple tear-jerking bargain books, Pay It
Forward and a collection of memories of the founding of the State of Israel --
sort of an Israeli version of Brokaw's Greatest Generations books, except, I
suspect, with a political subtext.
I also went with the purpose of finding out whether the latest version of Writer's
Market is substantially different from the 1999 edition my local library stocks.
The main one isn't, but there is also a new Internet version that comes complete
with CD-ROM, but it costs an additional $20. If I had $50 to spend on a
single book, I wouldn't be needing to look up Writer's Market in the first place
(I have private but vague plans for it.)
I ended up not spending a cent, not even for a latte on the way out. I might have
indulged myself that far, but since I hadn't bought any books, I wouldn't have had
anything to read while sitting there. I'm never sure whether they frown on
unpurchased books being taken into the cafe area, but it seems logical that they
would.
I consoled myself with a stop at the library afterward. However, the closest
branch is very new and not terribly well stocked yet -- I've never seen a fiction
section so small that all adult genres are shelved together, before. The
mysteries, Westerns, and SFs do have special labels, no doubt to facilitate
shelving them at the larger main branch. They had no Miss Reads at all, whereas
Borders had 3 or 4 different ones (I see Phelps' ears perking up), no Nancy
Mitfords, only Hambly's previous one, and not the Diana Wynn Jones I wanted.
Still, they had some nonfiction I'd wanted to read. And it was wonderful not to
have any time pressure pulling me out of the library, either.
Time: the last great luxury most 21st century Americans still can't afford.
Posted by dichroic at August 9, 2001 04:59 PM