When I was in second grade the book fairy took the tooth I had placed under my pillow and left me a book. "Mom, what is this!" "It's a book." I burst into inconsolable tears. The book fairy had stolen my tooth. Now the tooth fairy would never come and leave me a quarter. I was forced to eat last year's Halloween candy. This never happened. I don't know why I love books. There is not a single member of my family that loves books -- or literacy in general-- besides me. Look, I'm not being hard on them. They are who they are. But nothing makes a child wonder if they were adopted like trying to read Chris Crutcher while their Uncle is teaching their sisters and cousins how to set a fart on fire without burning their butt cheeks. This really did happen. My inspiration for this meandering blog post was my trip to the used bookstore. A month ago I had left a big old bag of books because the owner was not in and purchased three books at full price. I waited for a call about the store credit. It never came.Today I saw many of my books on the shelves. There was zero credit in the computer. I started to overact. (By overreact, I mean heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and steam came out of my ears.) They advertise that they give 1/2 of the cover price for titles. Shipping aside, I should get about $3.50 for a book that costs $7.99. I get closer to $1.00 per book. Because I need to limit the amount of books I have-- my apartment is small -- I've decided to see it more like a swap that's good for me. I give them four books I have read, and they give me one book I haven't. There is a limit to how much I'm willing to overlook. So, I took a deep breath and calmly shifted the stack of books I had picked out to the side, making clear that I wouldn't be spending any money. This got the girl's attention better than if I'd shouted. She called the owner. When she returned she said, "you have twenty dollars credit." I happily spent all of my credit plus another twenty dollars cash. Here are titles: The Invaders Plan by L. Ron Hubbard Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz Lisey's Story by Stephen King The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella The Face by Dean Koontz Rant by Chuck Palahniuk Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup And to improve my Korean for which there are no links: Grim's Fair Tales in English and Korean A collection of Poe's short stories in English and Korean. Now, Book Fairy, please trade in some Laura Lipman! Comments are closed.
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