book-keeping

Just a couple quick notes:

• For book-clubbers, I haven't forgotten to send out an e-mail about our date to discuss Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! Will update y'all this week.
• I've taken a wee break from the Important Male Authors push. Put it to holidaying, put it to my love of Elizabeth Hay. (I love Elizabeth Hay, and despite my possessions purge, I bought another book of hers this weekend. But at the Wee Book Inn, so it was more like I was doing research on how to sell books. Maybe? I also bought Northanger Abbey.) Currently I am reading a book written by a friend, but soon I will get back to men. I'm thinking Atonement....
• I gave away my copy of Anna Karenina. Sorry, friends. But my brother wanted to take a spin at Tolstoy.... And maybe I was never going to finish it. We'll never really know.
• Emily Giffin has a new book on store shelves! I know that liking Emily Giffin is barely half a step up from liking Sophie Kinsella. I accept this about myself.
• I bought Certain Girls while in London. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but was thrilled to have the UK version, which is in paperback already and surprisingly cheaper than the North American hardcover even after doing the math of converting pounds to dollars.
• Have I already mentioned how much I love how Brits love books? I know that's a weird thing to say, but they have book ads everywhere, on billboards and along Tube station walls. Last month, the big push was on to sell Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. It's so weird to be somewhere other than Canada and see Naomi Klein looking so seriously at you, perhaps judging you for caring so much about whether your jeans are stylish or if you have the right shoes....

random question

Is the blogosphere a competitive space?

I know that's kind of a ridiculous question. I mean, it wouldn't really make sense to think bloggers could scoop each other, the way newspapers do, because not everyone reads the same blogs. But then, not everyone reads both the Post and the Globe, and yet I'm sure they value their A1 victories....

Regardless, I totally beat this blog on the same topic. Yay me and my small (irrelevant? petty?) victories.


Side notes:

1. The latest book club pick is Jose Saramago's Blindness. On one hand, the theme of human survival and dystopia appeals to me. Also, the note on the inside of the hardcover book I scored at Wee Book Inn -- it was a birthday present in 1999 to "Comrade Barbara." This makes me laugh, but also makes me a bit sad (why did Barbara sell the book? was she a student, and couldn't afford to pack her hardcover books? did she hate this book? did she hate the gift-giver?) On the other hand, I am concerned about a lack of dialogue in the book, although a friend reassures me there is dialogue, it just isn't in the same format I'm used to. As a girl who's mother first introduced her to Harlequin romance novels when she was 11, I sort of have a hard time focusing without interesting bits of dialogue every few graphs. I'll keep you posted.
2. Did I already tell you I bought Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine? The thing about a new Klein book is it kind of makes me really excited and faux hippie proud even to own it. It brings me back to my pseudo radical days, when I knew that if you wore a water-drenched scarf around your nose and mouth you stood a better chance against pepper spray. Of course, the reality is, I am no longer the woman who first read No Logo. Rather, I am now a woman who stands in line at Starbucks everyday. Today when my co-worker snarkily commented on the scent of "commercialism and conformity," I sighed. "Yum."
3. A necessary addition to the links list.