No matter what you enjoy reading, I think it’s important to branch out into strange and unfamiliar territory from time to time. One of my favorite ways to do that is to think of a word and enter it into Amazon. Any random word will do, so long as it’s not something overly common like “the” or “it”. At first, you’ll probably end up with a lot of products, but if you click on books (at the left), you’ll be able to narrow it down to just the books that relate to that word.

Tonight, I tried a couple of terms. First, I tried “pool”. The results brought up a lot of books on playing pool, which isn’t really something that I would normally buy. All the same, I did see one very interesting-sounding book called “Everybody into the Pool” which is now on my wish list.

For my second search, I tried mattress. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, for you dirty-minded readers), it brought up a couple of erotica-related books. Very interesting.

If you’ve ever had an interest in reading a book on women’s lingerie, you’ll want to buy An Intimate Affair is the book to get. With nearly 400 glossy pages, it would make a great coffee table book, too.

I recently came across the book at the local Barnes and Noble, where a quick flip through the pages revealed a surprising array of underthings. And here I thought I had seen it all. Ladies, this could be a fun book for your men this Valentine’s Day, especially if the two of you recreate a few of the scenes.

Sometimes, I miss the boat completely. That’s definitely the case with The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Everyone I know has read the book, but somehow, I haven’t gotten around to it.

The basic idea is this: We have an aging writer who likes to make up stories about her life. We also have a young book nerd who decides that she wants the truth. And of course, there’s some weird ghostly stuff in there to mix it all up a bit. I realize it’s a gross oversimplification, but hey, I haven’t read it yet.

While I don’t usually care about reading the books that all my acquaintances are reading, this one actually sounds like it could be interesting. Did you see how I summarized the plot in just 1-2 sentences? That’s pretty darn high-concept for a novel, which is something that I like, assuming the book itself is still good. I just can’t swallow most of those “700 pages about some dude/lady’s feelings before, during, and after and affair” kind of novels. I grew up on the classic fairy tales and adventure novels, so I prefer that something actually HAPPENS in the books I read. Go figure.

I was talking to some friends the other day and we realized that we all have at least one book that has defeated us - Some major work that everyone and their dog has read, but still we can’t bring ourselves to read it.

For me, that book is Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. I don’t even understand it. I’ve read pretty much everything else he’s ever written, and I enjoy most of it. For some strange reason, though, I’ve never made it more than 20 pages into Bleak House.

So - that will be my goal this year. At some point in 2007, I will read Bleak House in its entirety.

What’s the book you’ve never been able to conquer?

Okay, I’ll get right to the point. What books did you get for Christmas this year? Or better yet, did you get a gift card to your favorite bookstore?

I’ll post mine once I make it back home. I made an excellent haul this year - I’ll be reading well into February, and after that I’ve got gift cards to work on. Really, the familiy did an excellent job of interpreting my wish list this year.

I’ve been away for a while, so posts have been pretty much nonexistent. I did go to a booksale last night, though, and it as positively frightening. Just a few years ago, I remember booksales as these wonderful, quiet events where you could go and pick out all kinds of great books at your own pace.

Apparently, things have changed. I arrived to the early preview night about ten minutes early. This place was camped like a boy band concert. Except everyone there was really funny looking. There were at LEAST 40-50 fatasses sitting on blankets by the door with rolling crates and ScoutPals. eBay resellers, every last one of them.

Now don’t get me wrong - I have no problem with seeing people make a little profit. The ScoutPal people, however, have taken it to an entirely new level. So you know, a ScoutPal is a little barcode scanning device that you hook to your phone to get the current low/average prices for used books at major online retailers. The people carrying them, without exception, are assholes - yet somehow, I almost managed to get myself kicked out of this little church booksale because of them.

The campers pushed and shoved to get in once the doors opened, and they immediately RAN for the tables with textbooks and technical manuals. As I flipped through a stack, looking for CSS Manuals, arms reached in front of and around me, grabbing books left and right. I saw a promising box of books under one of the tables and bent down to look through it. Without a moment’s hesitation, and without any form of polite warning, a woman cried out, “We’ve got a book stealer over here!”

Everyone turned to look, and there I was, looking through a box under the table like a criminal. One of the volunteers came over and gave me a stern warning before apologizing to the shrieker. Apparently, books can be “saved” by sticking them under the table or by putting a blanket over the top. That’s news to me. I always thought you had to take them up to the coordinators - but I guess that would kill too much precious book-hogging time.

I just don’t see why they allow those things in, though. If I were running a book fair, I’d ban ScoutPals until the last few hours. Let people spend the first few days guessing the old-fashioned way. Since a lot of books LOOK more valuable than they are, they would sell a ton of “worthless” books on the first few days, and give a chance to the people who really know and love books.

Unfortunately, since CSS books go for a decent price on eBay, there were none to speak of by the time I made it in the door. One land-cow did offer to sell me some of hers for $20 each, though. Thanks, but no thanks.