The past weekend brought a much-needed trip to the bookstore -- I was jonesing for a little hardcover and mass-market paperback action. I managed to restrain my worst impulses by not just grabbing whatever seemed mildly interesting. My husband tends to frown on that. So I didn't hit the bank account too hard, thanks to some difficult choices and my store discount card.
America's most prolific retired author has yet another book out, Duma Key. I have a long history with Stephen King novels. I read my first, The Shining, while in elementary school, promptly giving myself all sorts of nightmares and a phobia about closed shower curtains -- but I was totally hooked. Looking back, I think my parents had somehow convinced themselves that either I wasn't really reading the grown-up books I always pulled from their shelves or that I didn't understand them. Lucky me, no one stepped in to say no to my reading habits, at least until I started in on the V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series, which I then proceeded to read on the sly.
So I have a soft spot for King, even for some of the lower points of his work (Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher, etc.). Given my propensity for reading high-, middle- and low-brow, I have some sympathy for King and his battle to make the literary establishment consider story as well as style in the determination of what makes something "literary." Not too much sympathy, mind you -- the man is wealthier than God and has the creative freedom to continually inflict bad screenplays upon the public. His books, though, manage to grab your interest even when the work isn't his best (Lisey's Story). I'm not sure what to expect from Duma Key, but I'm hoping I'll be reasonably entertained.
I also grabbed a couple more horror paperbacks, one that I'm already so bored with I'm not even going to mention the name. I haven't started Brian Keene's Dark Hollow yet. Keene is a writer like Bentley Little for me -- someone I really want to like and enjoy, even though I've been disappointed in most of his books. Joke's on me, I suppose, since I keep buyin' and they keep writin'.
I picked up No End in Sight just because I'm building a little library of books about why the Iraq war turned into such a clusterfuck. I'm sure the "surge is working!" crowd won't burden their shelves, but in their case history is unlikely to be kind.
Finally, after I'd paid for all that and some magazines, I spied Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake on the bargain table for just $6.98. Well, I can't pass that up. For that cheap I don't even have to worry about reading it, I can just enjoy having it. But maybe I'll schedule a little post-apocalyptic reading week and take on this and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
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