I just received a box of nine books. They're not popular novels, none of them fiction, rather they were chosen to fit in with our household's odd notion of what will make an interesting read or which will fill some gaps in our rather broad range of interests. Three of this current order are railroad books: an atlas of North American railroads and two about railroad stations. One book, unbelievably heavy but a recent publication, is about the history of sailing ships. Two have to do with Great Britain and one is an art book about Maxfield Parrish. There's one about the last year of World War I and one about the "legacy of the WPA".
What does this say about our reading habits, our rather strange assortment of what we think we're interested in reading about? (Maybe I shouldn't say "strange" but I realize some of our friends and neighbors regard the number of books in our house rather odd to begin with.) It does make me wonder why these books have fallen into the hands of what I guess is called "remainders" because they haven't sold in the bookstores. Certainly their original price would not make for an easy sell but getting a book still in its shrink-wrap for less than a third of its original price is irresistible.
I indulge at the beginning by looking through some of them at the pictures (when there are any), then skimming a couple of pages. It will be a while before I can sit down and read seriously.
I wonder which will be first?
No comments:
Post a Comment