I don't know why, I've been feeling a little weepy lately. I mean, not breaking into sobs at every opportunity, just a little more likely to tear up over something sad. I attribute it to missing Rudder, and to missing my boat, and to frustration over work issues. (Also, I've changed to a new variety of BCP, so there could be hormones involved.) Today at lunch, I was considering going out, decided it was too much effort, went down to the cafeteria, decided I couldn't really face cafeteria food, and went out after all, on an excursion I'd been considering for a few days. I went to the Antiquarian Book Shop (and its next-door neighbor, which is merely an antiquarian book shop, and spent a happy hour deciding whether I really wanted a first edition of The Education of Henry Adams or if I'd rather spend the same money on a hardcopy of Frances Hodgeson Burnett's The Lost Prince, or whether it was stupid to buy either given that both are available online.
I ended up deciding on A. Edward Newton's Accidental Tourist and Mark Twain's 2 volume Autobiography.
Warning: it's really not a good idea to look a book up on Alibris after you've paid bookstore price for it. (Before you pay for it is a much better time.) Still, the Newton is a first impression of the first trade edition (I'm not entirely clear what a "trade edition" is, in a hardback) and is within the range at Alibris, and I got a pretty good deal on the Twain volumes even by Alibris standards because they're water-stained. And though it makes me feel all collectorly to have a first edition or two around, the fact is I buy my books to read. Also, the Newton book isn't available in an online text, and the Twain is one of those Australia-only ones you're not supposed to access in the US due to copyright rules, so I really am paying to be able to read these, not just to have a book I can hold.
I have a peculiar fondness for Newton, being a fellow Philadelphia, appreciating his love for books, and actually having been in his transplanted library, and it's fun to read about how different traveling through Europe was most of a century ago. As for the Autobiography, well, it's by Mark Twain and it's not Joan of Arc, so how bad can it be? I figure the man who helped make Ulysses Grant's Autobiography ought to have done all right in his own.
Books are very good investments in my mood. While I do practice retail therapy more than I probably ought to, binging on clothing is like binging on fast food. It tastes good at the time, but leaves you a little queasy and without much substance. (The exception is when you spend more than you think you should - but less than you have - on something you absolutely love and will wear to death.) Binging on books is more like overeating at Thanksgiving dinner for me. Yeah, maybe I overdid it a little, but it's nutrition that will last, and the whoole dinner leaves memories I can take out again and again. Except that books are even better, because I can reread the whole book, not just a memory of it. And then there's that whole thing about actually getting to learn from them. What better investment could I make?
Posted by dichroic at August 9, 2006 02:14 PM