End of an era
Bargain Books opened in Mishawaka during my freshman year of college. Tomorrow, it’ll close for good. Martin and I shopped there one last time. The books were being sold for $1 each. My haul was this:
Martin, who teaches U.S. literature to 11th-graders, bought a couple of Oxford World’s Classics: Letters from an American Farmer, and Wieland: “One of the earliest major American novels … a thrilling tale of suspense and intrigue set in rural Pennsylvania in the 1760s. Based on an actual case of a New York farmer who murdered his family, the novel employs Gothic devices and sensational elements such as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and religious fanaticism” (this last find was much admired by everyone in our household).
As we were leaving the store, Martin noticed some tacky old i-Pod cases for sale, and so he returned to buy one. I went out to the parking lot to enjoy the weather. The clouds were thick. The temperature was in the fifties (F). A desolate little lake had been created from the melted snow. The breeze formed tiny ripples on it.
Since this was a Friday afternoon, Grape Road had a good amount of traffic.
- Royce Flippin, ed., The Best American Political Writing 2007 (this has Larissa MacFarquhar’s essay on Barack Obama, “The Conciliator”);
- Penelope Lively, The Photograph (all I know is, she wrote Moon Tiger);
- Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries (I’d never heard of this);
- Barry C. Smith, ed., Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine (this book, I once wouldn’t have touched; but, yesterday, when I glanced at it, its tightly argued pretentiousness was irresistible);
- D.M. Thomas, The White Hotel (I’d never heard of this);
- Alec Waugh, Hot Countries (his brother, Evelyn, wrote much, much better);
- Frank Welsh, Australia: A New History of the Great Southern Land;
- Paul West, The Universe, and Other Fictions;
- Mo Yan, The Garlic Ballads.
Martin, who teaches U.S. literature to 11th-graders, bought a couple of Oxford World’s Classics: Letters from an American Farmer, and Wieland: “One of the earliest major American novels … a thrilling tale of suspense and intrigue set in rural Pennsylvania in the 1760s. Based on an actual case of a New York farmer who murdered his family, the novel employs Gothic devices and sensational elements such as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and religious fanaticism” (this last find was much admired by everyone in our household).
As we were leaving the store, Martin noticed some tacky old i-Pod cases for sale, and so he returned to buy one. I went out to the parking lot to enjoy the weather. The clouds were thick. The temperature was in the fifties (F). A desolate little lake had been created from the melted snow. The breeze formed tiny ripples on it.
Since this was a Friday afternoon, Grape Road had a good amount of traffic.
