Friday, January 8, 2010

I don't care how moldy they are, I love them!

I have bought rare books!

If I ever make the misguided attempt to argue that I am not a nerd, you have my permission to rub my face in this post.

I was downtown on Tverskaya Street, looking for something to do for a half hour before meeting Briullov for coffee. Of course I walked into the nearest bookstore. What other option would I have?(!)

I originally wasn’t going to buy anything.

I swear.

Scout’s honor. (Probably not the best choice. I was a Boy Scout for less than two years.)

But then I walked downstairs into the rare book section, and found three texts that a) are on my to-read list and b) are constantly cited by other authors. I did my typical carry-carry-carry around the store trick, hoping to figure out which one I wanted to buy when it came time to leave, but I couldn’t decide.

“I can’t decide, I can’t decide, I can’t decide,” I said to each in turn. Hopefully not out loud.
I can’t decide whether you should live or die!
Oh, you’d probably go to Heaven
Please don’t hang your head and cry!
Don’t wonder why my heart feels dead inside
It’s cold and hard and petrified!
Lock the doors and close the blinds
We’re going for a ride!
In the end, I couldn’t come to any conclusion as to which to throw away. I bought them all!

I will never regret this.

3 comments:

Russian Fairy Tales said...

Wait, what? What where the books? Readers everywhere NEED to know!
-Madame de P.

K. said...

It's always okay to buy books. Always. Never decide unless there are not enough pennies your pocket!!

PS: My post verification word is quumpa. I kinda want to give it a definition and use it forever.

Andrew said...

"Laureates of the Stalinist Prize"
"Soviet Architecture: The First Five Years"
"Soviet Architecture: Archival Materials and Documents"

and we should think of a good working definition for quumpa, Kate, I'll get back to you on that. :D