Bookstores target suckers like me when they publish discount coupons periodically in the papers. I know I have loads of books unread, starting from the load that I bought in May-July at book sales after graduation. Nonetheless, the true bibliophile will collect books because he knows that these are precious documents of knowledge that will eventually be enjoyed in retirement years, and partially out of morbid obsession too.
So, with 2 borders coupons, I bought Saul Bellow's short stories and Gogol's Dead Souls. This was in addition to Penguin's anthology of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Philip Larkin's Collected Poems bought a fortnight ago at Kinokuniya. How will I find time to read all this? "Somehow..." I reply.
By the way, Czeslaw Milosz's book of essays To Begin Where I Am is my read of December - Although a man firmly rooted in the middle of the 20th Century, most people will probably find his style and content archaic compared to modern writings nowadays grounded in disaffectation. He was someone who cared for the fate of post-war Europe and the place of art and culture in the modern age, from a place devastated by the WWII physically and psychically. Read and empathise with the artist who feels for humanity with honest sentimentality.
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