Book Splurging!

I've gone mad. Mad I tell you, MAD!!!!!! MwahahahaAHAhahAhHAhaHAH! See this kitten? No of course you can't . You're just reading this and obviously there is no kitten to be seen. Just imagine that I'm holding a kitten. It's black all over except for its paws and the tip of its tail which are white. Okay? Fine. Now, see this kitten? Yes, very cute, I know. I have a butcher knife in the other hand and a saucepan on the stove with water just waiting to boil. Yes, I'm going to - no I'm not. I'm not and I can't. I can't do anything that bad to kittens, real or imagined. I'm too squeamish and all warm and fuzzy inside. The worst thing I can ever do to one is to ignore it, something I've done to many kittens I see on the streets.

The kittens have nothing to do with what I want to talk about. It just that I haven't done a rambly post for quite some time, I think, and the whole kitten drivel just sort of came out and stuff.  This splitting of posts usually demand of me some sort of coherence with my "writing", if you could call it that. Anyway, what I want to talk about is how I just blew a chunk of my savings and my salary on books. Again.

Okay, it started out around last week-ish. I just received my weekly allowance and I wanted the 500 peso bill to be broken down into smaller bills. I entered  Booksale, the one in SM San Lazaro, a few blocks away from my house. After browsing and making some heavy decisions that I kind of regret and stuff, I left the store with Orson Scott Card's Xenocide (P95), and Robert Heinlein's Grumbles from the Grave (P70). 

Xenocide is the third book in Card's Ender quartet which starts with Ender's Game, followed by Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. The Ender quartet is about the troubles of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin; first as a child genius who is being trained to fight in the Bugger War, a war against aliens who look like bugs, duh;  and then as a Speaker for the Dead, a person who narrates the deceased's life story as he/she lived it without the lies and excuses, 3000 years later (thanks to the wonders of time-dilation during space travel).

Grumbles from the Grave was published after Robert Heinlein's death in 1988. It's a compilation of letters from Heinlein to his editors and agents about writing, travel, and whatever. The letters were compiled and edited by Virginia Heinlein, his wife, and they offer an interesting view of his being a Sci-fi writer, and the trouble that comes with it.

A few days later, I go to a friend's house to hang-out and stuff. I got to the house and it was empty, apparently the family went to the mall and stuff and they still weren't home. I just went to the bookstore, Bound Bookstore, at the end of their block and was surprised to see that they were having a sale. What got me hooked was the signs that said, "Books for as low as P5.00!" I go in, do some browsing, some private reading, and got out with a compilation of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories for P5.00. I would've bought more but I was kinda broke at the time with only loose change enough for a ride home. Days later, I again enter the bookstore. This time, I had a friend with me, and of course money. I went home with Olivia Goldsmith's Young Wives, a revenge of the scorned women story by Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives Club; an issue of Analog, an issue of  Asimov's Science Fiction, and Eric Berne's What Do You Say After You Say Hello?. The last one is a book about transactional analysis and life-scripts and Psych stuff. I got the books all for P35. Ha!

Yesterday, after work, I hung out with Reighben at Robinson's Place Ermita. We looked at the bargain section of Powerbooks and I found David Sedaris' Naked for P119. I counted the money in my wallet and saw that I would still have enough money left to go home that day. I bought it without any second thoughts. 'Til now the only Sedaris book I had was Me Talk Pretty One Day and I got that one during a warehouse sale. David Sedaris' books are still annoyingly expensive.

Now just a while ago, I go into Booksale SM San Lazaro and started browsing again. And popping out, one after the other, were books I felt that I should go home with. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, Beyond this Horizon by Robert Heinlein (I'm such a sucker for his books), and Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur Clarke were available for P15 each. , Stephen King's The Gunslinger  P40 while Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses was P35. I walked home happily swinging my plastic bag of books with the knowledge that I spent P150. 

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is the first book in Judy Blume's Fudge series. I liked the latest one in the series, Double Fudge, when I read it around last year. My mom brought it with her during her brief visit here from Canada for my Lolo's funeral. The Fudge series is about Peter Hatcher and the troubles he gets into because of his little brother, Farley Drexel whom everybody just calls Fudge.

I bought The Demolished Man since it was by Alfred Bester. I liked To the Stars, My Destination when I read it in Liz's sci-fi anthology and since he wrote that one, I might as well try this one.

Rendezvous with Rama is the first book in Clarke's Rama series. Clarke is one of the sci-fi greats that I have yet to fully appreciate since I haven't read much of his work. Childhood's End was good though.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King is the first book in his The Dark Tower series. Usually Stephen Kings rarely cost less than a hundred pesos- and that's at bargain prices. This one was at P40. So there. Likewise, it's hard to find Amy Tan books that are less than fifty pesos. 

I spent, more or less, P500 on books. And I'm happy and fine with that. I just hope I won't have a sudden need for money after this.