Beware of the (wo)man of one book

Jan 28, 2008 by Monica Danna    5 Comments    Posted under: travel

Raise your hand if the only reason you got into reading was in 3rd grade because you wanted to win a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza? Or you liked stickers. Pretty good chance it’s one of the two.

Come on. Yes, I read. Don’t act so surprised. How else would I know that Jessica Biel made JT fly to London where she was after rumors (ahem, rumours) of him and Miss Penny Lane playing smoochy smooch at an LA night club. What the hell, why don’t stars just hang out in Idaho like Demi and Ashton?

So when I finally decided to remind myself that I was leaving town in a mere 5 days for over 4 weeks, the natural stop was to the bookstore. Hey, I’m pretty entertaining, but 20 hours on a flight? Come on, I’ve had relationships shorter than that.

After a quick stop at one of my fav stores in the Heights, Tansu, to pick up an overpriced, oversized, cute as heck packing checklist that I had eyed there months ago, it was on to the bookstore. I also learned that on Sundays at Tansu you can fold paper in to tiny animals like rats and armadillos (some people call this origami—i call it a papercut waiting to happen). But only if you bring the owners a coke. Diet for her, regular for him.

I LOVE going to bookstores. And not in a “trying to impress you that I read books” kinda way. But I really love being at the bookstore. Mostly because people just leave you alone. Or creepily stare. Both which are fine by me. But I must confess, that 95% of my time is usually spent in one of 2 places: the paper goods section (i’m a sucker for good graphic design) or the books on brains. Yeah, I know, not exactly a lot of variety.

Truth be told, a majority of the books I read are non-fiction. History, medicine, science, psychology, etc. If I hated it in school, there’s a good chance love it now. Dude, you’re talking to a girl who once spent an entire year researching Russian history because of a damn Tori Amos song. (Creepy, super fan. That’s me.) So I usually have a hard time finding a good fiction to read, mostly for the same reason I don’t like sci-fi movies. Um, it ain’t real.

Luckily, I had a friend with me to guide me down the fiction path, and who picked out a few selections. My only rule was, “please pick something you think I will like, not something that you like.” Sorry, but the “Investigation of Surface Mechanical Environment as an Optimization Criterion for Improved Tissue Engineering Scaffolds” ain’t the kinda thing that’s gonna hold my attention across the entire Pacific Ocean.

We ending up deciding on Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama; and after trying to take pictures with our cell phone cameras of every page of the Kuala Lumpur section in every Malaysia guide book, we were on our way.

I’m hoping it doesn’t take me 20 hours to read this book. Of course, I’ll probably ditch the book and pick up every back issue of US weekly I can get my hands on in the overpriced airport bookstore. Wonder of Jessica and Justin will make it? I hope I do.

image: slightclutter (taken at half price book in houston, tx)

Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!