One of my best friends, Emma, is coming to visit next week. I’m very excited, we have all sorts of spectacular plans made: bookstores to visit, places to go, bookish events to attend, movies to watch in the evenings, and food to eat.
This also means that I need to clean the guest bedroom. The guest bedroom is also the library. In the past few months, it’s become overgrown with books. Book spilling off the shelves, books on the bed, and books on the floor. So today I started to tackle the project of cleaning it up so that Emma will have a spot to sleep and put her things for the week she’s here.
I own a lot of books that I need to read still, but today I found a few in particular that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and really should try to read soon, including:
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Marquise of O- by Heinrich Von Kleist
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Assistant by Robert Walser
It’s fun to dig around and find books you haven’t laid eyes on in a while. I sort of feel like it’s a good way to “shop” during a recession. If you’re lucky enough to own a lot of something you love, why not dig around in your collection and find something that you haven’t properly appreciated in a while, instead of buying something new? Watch some old favorite DVDs. Listen to long neglected music. Start a project with some craft supplies that haven’t been used in a while. Read a few poems or essays out of a too rarely opened anthology.
My other favorite way of “shopping” when I’m trying to save money is going to the library. I usually check out way more books that I can read before they’re due, but it really does satisfy an urge to shop.
Now my only trouble is deciding which of my many unread books to start first.
Anyway, I hope to have a lot of fun pictures to post from me and Emma’s adventures. She arrives on Friday and we’ll be stopping in every bookstore we can, as usual, and also spending a lot of time in Brooklyn – hopefully also making it to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
PS – Another thing Emma and I will need to schedule in is watching our alma mater, Michigan State, play in the Final Four on Saturday! Hurrah! Go Spartans!
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