Been trying to catch up with my reading quota this year. My goal is to read 100 books before the end of 2010. To keep me going I'd occasionally buy supplies of good books from Booksale, or from other regular bookshops.
Some days ago, I went to La Belle Aurore, a modestly well-stocked bookstore located just about 600 meters away from our office. I walked that distance out of a whim, originally thinking of eating my lunch when I found that I wasn't really hungry for food, but of something else. So I skipped lunch and went to La Belle and was very lucky to find a rare copy of Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour. A good rush of delight swept over me. I've been trying to find that book for months and finally held it in my hands and would never part with it come hell 'n high water, till I claimed ownership to it. Mon, that's the name of the bookstore gay assistant, who is kind and very helpful, asked me if I have any particular author or title in mind. I doubted her at first if she knows John Cheever or Louis L'Amour, or Education of a Wandering Man. But she proved me wrong and commended her for it when she got me just exactly what I wanted and then more. I paid for Education of a Wandering Man. Also bought two of Louis L'Amour novels How the West was Won and The Ferguson Rifle, and Yondering, a collection of stories. While at it, I wasn't able to resist temptation and took two more books from the shelf. One is A Biography of John Cheever by Scott Donaldson, the other is A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Andrew Turnbull.
Some days ago, I went to La Belle Aurore, a modestly well-stocked bookstore located just about 600 meters away from our office. I walked that distance out of a whim, originally thinking of eating my lunch when I found that I wasn't really hungry for food, but of something else. So I skipped lunch and went to La Belle and was very lucky to find a rare copy of Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour. A good rush of delight swept over me. I've been trying to find that book for months and finally held it in my hands and would never part with it come hell 'n high water, till I claimed ownership to it. Mon, that's the name of the bookstore gay assistant, who is kind and very helpful, asked me if I have any particular author or title in mind. I doubted her at first if she knows John Cheever or Louis L'Amour, or Education of a Wandering Man. But she proved me wrong and commended her for it when she got me just exactly what I wanted and then more. I paid for Education of a Wandering Man. Also bought two of Louis L'Amour novels How the West was Won and The Ferguson Rifle, and Yondering, a collection of stories. While at it, I wasn't able to resist temptation and took two more books from the shelf. One is A Biography of John Cheever by Scott Donaldson, the other is A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Andrew Turnbull.
It was raining hard when I got out from the bookstore. But the owner (whose name I should remember) was kind to offer me a cardboard which he procured from a stockroom somewhere and gave it to me. It would at least help you not to get too wet when you reached the next corner, he said. I said thanks and went my way with the books securely wrapped in cellophane.The thick cardboard did help a lot.
After dinner, I took a quick bath, dressed, and commenced to reading Education of a Wandering Man. It tells about the author's journey to educating his self by leaving his home, his 10th grade school, for good, at age 15. He became a nomad and traveled the United States, embarked to many travels around the world as a seaman, and explore various places and times through his omnivorous reading. He said to have read over 20,000 books. Cripes, that's quite a lot.
(This post is still in progress. Will write some more after I eat my dinner and drink my milk. Thanks for following my own little journey to awesomeness.)
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