you can't win 'em all

Last week, Trish and I went to to check out the Waterbury library. They were having a book sale. It was a dollar for a bag of books. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see my book buying habits), it was the end of the sale and it was slim pickings. I did score two books though.

His Illegal Self by Peter Carey
&
Making Things Grow, A Practical Guide for the Indoor Gardener by Thalassa Cruso

I picked up the first book because I've seen it around at Borders or something, I'm sure. I'm a third in and it's ok. It's a good post Faulkner cleanser. There are parts where the narration gets annoying; it is as though Carey is trying really hard to be original but I just think he's being passive aggressive. The jacket says he's received the Booker Prize twice, and I'm guessing not for this book.

The second book I haven't started yet...I bought it in filling the void of always wanting house plants but never buying them thinking, what's-the-point-I-move-too-much-anyways. It comes with illustrations and upon skimming it, I found 2 dried up leaves someone pressed, yay! Apparently the author had a show on PBS; maybe I can find them and watch them...

The library in my town sucks. Which duh, it's a small town. But! They have magazines you can check out (Harpers, Atlantic, New Yorker, etc) so I plan on reading those.

PS: Went to Montpelier (fact: it is the smallest capital city in the US) last week, there were 3 book stores within a block, so exciting! More on that later...

Vermont!

I have 40 pages left in As I Lay Dying and I had to tear myself away to write this. This! If you haven't noticed, I suck at writing. This book is amazing in so many ways. It makes me cringe, it breaks my heart in so many ways, and I have to reread certain passages because I can't believe what he wrote. I can see why people compare him to McCarthy. Faulkner is the original gangster and McCarthy is his follower.

Everyone should read this book. It is about a family that loses their mother and the journey they take to bury her. It's in a stream of consciousness/vignette-esque so you get to know each family member and the people around them who are affected by the death. That's all I can say without quoting the entire book.

Expect more books from Faulkner. Though the library kind of sucks here in Waterbury...

PS: So far I haven't read as much as I thought I would because I've been so distracted by Vermont!

PSS: I'm falling in love with this town, I want to Montpelier today (the capitol of VT, and I saw 3, effing 3! bookstores in a block).

PSSS: I went on a short roadtrip to Maine last weekend. And I creamed my pants when I found this place... http://www.rockcitycoffee.com/secondread.htm. The book selection is not that great (lets say I found better new books than used) but it was quite charming and I fell in love with the place nonetheless. And no, I didn't have any coffee because it was late.

Still Life with Woodpecker

Hi Everyone,

Vermont! And I realized I finished Still Life, loved it and then forgot the book to reference any of it (Caitlin, you wanna pitch in here?). If you've never read it, read parts of it here. This book had me loling a few times (very few books do that except for Sedaris).

"Who knows how to make love stay?"
Read it and find out!

What I'm reading now...

"In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows who he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it not yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep....
How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home."

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner