Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Lately

I haven’t written much in a while, so this will be a conglomeration of the latest in life.

I’ve ventured around a good bit and found some neat places.  I’ll start with bookstores.  The first that I actually found (as in, the address did not turn out to be a Jackson-Hewitt tax office) was Book People on Granite Avenue.  The place appears to be run by an older lady who I think was born out of the states, but has lived in the area for 40+ years.  It was a neat shop with a large selection of books.  She was very helpful in the search, and I left with a couple of books, though they had nothing by Somerset Maughm, and there were no copies of War and Peace translated by Maude/Maude.  More recently, I visited Chop Suey Books on Cary Street.  It was a bit brighter, but the guy behind the counter seemed less knowledgeable, and though nice enough, was not particularly helpful.  I liked the place, though, including the concept of selling art in a room upstairs.  They had a great selection including a pretty decent spiritual/religious section from which I attained a book by the Dalai Lama.  I also purchased Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maughm.

The third of the bookstores that I have been able to find is Fountain Books (also on Cary Street).  It was a neat little place and the girl was friendly and seemed like she might have been helpful had I needed any.  While they didn’t have a huge selection of books, they were able to order.  I liked the area at the front with employee picks listed by the particular employee who chose the books.  Last, I visited Black Swan Books on Main Street (farther west than I thought).  They had a different personality as each of the former three had had.  There were a larger number of books of the categories rare/older/etc.  They did have a nicely sized literature section, and I was able to find a copy of War and Peace translated by Maude/Maude!  It was bound similarly to the copy I’d started from the FHU library, and I like it a good deal, though it does not have a cloth bookmark as the other did.

With the five books that I purchased from all three of the four stores, I think that I may have achieved my fifty dollars spread between three businesses for the month!  Go local business.

That’s all that I have to say for now.  It’s actually not, but there are some things that you just shouldn’t risk publishing for all to see.

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