Breaking Promises
I wrote a few weeks ago that I was determined to read at least half of the thirty unread books on my shelf before purchasing any new ones. I made it… well, a few weeks. Just before Christmas, I broke my pact and bought Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which has been recommended to me by several people over the years. I would argue that it doesn’t really count as breaking my pact because I devoured it immediately. The reason I made this promise was to avoid purchasing books that would sit on my shelves, lonely and unread, while still more books stacked up around them. (I think Bird by Bird is worth its own post. Stand by.) I’ve followed the spirit, if not quite the letter, of my promise. Mostly.
But I just got a $50 gift certificate to a bookstore for Christmas. I already know I’m going to end up spending more than $50, but I am planning my purchases out carefully so as not to go too far over. And I’m planning on blowing the entire gift card before I leave Indiana, to save myself some sales tax (Chicago’s has recently gone up to 10.25%).
2666 by Roberto Bolaños was recommended to me by a friend, and it looks intriguing, and possibly a good book for the coming winter months (it’s 898 pages, which would hopefully distract me from at least a few weeks of miserable temperatures and falling snow). The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, about the dust bowl of the 1930s, was recommended by a colleague as an excellent piece of nonfiction, and it looks quite good as well. I’m also thinking about Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, since I’ve loved everything else she’s written, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, which may provide some much-needed running inspiration as I gear up for another year of half-marathons and my second full marathon.
Have you read any of these books? What would you buy with $50?
Posted 28 December 2008
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I finished Unaccustomed Earth a few weeks ago and it was good. I wouldn’t say it’s the best of her books, but of course she’s a fantastic writer so it’s good. *Maybe* not worth blowing a large chunk of your gift card to get it in hardcover. The best book I’ve read recently we just sent you, so I guess suggesting that one is out. :-) My tendency would be to spend it on a really nice cookbook (or two).
A somewhat related question- have you read Katharine Graham’s autobiography? I may have asked you that previously, apologies if so. I’m not saying buy that one, you can find it for cheap in used book stores.
You have recommended the Katharine Graham book to me, and it’s on my list. I should really hit up Powell’s in Hyde Park…
Yay! Can’t wait to see what y’all’ve sent me!
My father LOVED the Worst Hard Time and I plan to squirrel it away in my luggage when I leave my parents house in OKC.
I have recently become a huge fan of Peter Hessler and his books on China, just finished Oracle Bones and I can’t say enough good things about his brand of travel-cultural writing. He is a staff writer for the New Yorker but more importantly he is the son of a sociologist (who is a friend of my dad’s from grad school) and I think his writing has sociological bent. He is an acute observer of the Chinese people and his approach to travel-culture writing does not have that self-discovery slant that you often see in this genre.