Thursday, April 03, 2008
Check it Out
I have kind of a weird thing (imagine that) about my books. Not only am I kind of picky about what I read (although I did buy The Da Vinci Code in hardback for $1 at the Brown Elephant), I also care about how my books look. Maybe because I am constantly judging people on the train for reading, say, a hardcover edition of The Secret or a well-worn copy of The Fountainhead, I worry that I will so be judged. So I most prefer to have plain-bound, anonymous editions of the classics, or cool-looking 70s paperbacks with hilarious illustrations. It's better reading that way, I swear.
But the other day at my local public library I got screwed. I approached the desk with a lovely forest green copy of Balzac's (tee hee) Cousin Bette, only to be told that, because it wasn't "bar coded," I would have to take their other copy. That copy? A paperback with a movie tie-in. So now Jessica Lange is leering up at me from my bedside table each night.
The implications are staggering. What if people now think I picked out this book because I fell in love with a little-seen 1997 motion picture from Fox Searchlight that I never even knew existed? I may have to learn to speed read.
I have kind of a weird thing (imagine that) about my books. Not only am I kind of picky about what I read (although I did buy The Da Vinci Code in hardback for $1 at the Brown Elephant), I also care about how my books look. Maybe because I am constantly judging people on the train for reading, say, a hardcover edition of The Secret or a well-worn copy of The Fountainhead, I worry that I will so be judged. So I most prefer to have plain-bound, anonymous editions of the classics, or cool-looking 70s paperbacks with hilarious illustrations. It's better reading that way, I swear.
But the other day at my local public library I got screwed. I approached the desk with a lovely forest green copy of Balzac's (tee hee) Cousin Bette, only to be told that, because it wasn't "bar coded," I would have to take their other copy. That copy? A paperback with a movie tie-in. So now Jessica Lange is leering up at me from my bedside table each night.
The implications are staggering. What if people now think I picked out this book because I fell in love with a little-seen 1997 motion picture from Fox Searchlight that I never even knew existed? I may have to learn to speed read.
