NBLB Weekend Survey #5: Book Fiend Confessions

You can run. You can hide. But that tell-tale bulge in your book tote speaks volumes. You gave in. Your library card's scanned heat burns through your wallet. Your Mastercard digits are fresh in your mind after a hasty purchase on Amazon.com. Books are falling out of your shelves. Your nightstand looks like the display case at Borders.

We know what you did.

We did it too - and we're telling all on this weekend's NBLB Survey #5...the Book Fiend Confessions edition.

The Happy Scribe: Undead Histories

1) What books did you buy recently? I seem to be on a history and politics binge lately: Daniel J. Boorstin's The Seekers and The Discoverers; along with Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? I want a Kindle. Badly. It's probably another gadget I won't use after its novelty wears off in six months...but I covet it every time I check my account. Though the price tag will keep my reading to paper-based books for a good long while. I can't deal with iPods, but I'm a-tremble over the Kindle. Whadyya know.

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire _____" ...A leather bound set of the classics, just like my mom had in her library while I was growing up. There's just something about gilt-edged paper and the smell of leather while reading Cervantes, Thucydides and Shakespeare.

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. I have been hunting for a copy of Eleanor Hoffman's Mischief in Fez for YEARS. I can't just settle for the text version. The original illustrations were so beautiful. Love of that delicate fennec drawing could quite possibly be the root of my infatuation with fluffy, sharp-eared animals.

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. My copy of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. My mother bought me this thick volume edited by renowned historian Kenneth O. Morgan at Oxford, after we saw the famous dining hall. There is absolutely no way I would part with this book. Some of the twentieth century discussions are already out of date (this edition ends with Thatcher) and I've spilled coffee on some pages (notably, the Tudor years, which were my chosen area of study in college), but no other compilation explores Britain's two thousand year old story with such aplomb.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made? Cherry wood folding shelves for my living room. I realize my current book collection has already spilt onto various windowsills, but I will not settle for ugly shelves. Hubby has the more expensive books, since arts and photography anthologies do cost quite a pretty penny. I'm a cheap book date in comparison - most of my current collection are from my childhood/college stash, or refugees from library sales.

7) If you could design your dream library, what would it look like? Cozy - full of pillowy couches and arched reading lamps in worked nickel, all four walls reaching ceiling-high in books. Huge windows for daylight reading, with a fat, purring cat in the corner. Oh...and all the time in the world to read every single volume.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." The bargain history book pile, especially those big discounts on DK books with all the great pictures. If it's under $15, I'm stuck to it like mud on a farm horse.

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library. Deep breath: Eight Laurell K. Hamilton books (Anita, you saucy minx), Mary Janice Davidson's Sleeping with the Fishes, Shobhaa De's "sari-ripper" Bollywood Nights, Duncan Sprott's ancient family saga The Ptolemies, Meg Cabot's Queen of Babble in the Big City, Hester Browne's The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, and several art compediums. I read them simultaneously, so I could dabble in a little Hamilton paired with MJD (because I need her humor to wash down all those leather pant descriptions), or some Cabot spiced with Bollywood adventures. All those Anita Blake books lately? My librarian thinks I'm doing research on vampires. I don't correct her.

10) "I love my local library because...." It's my sanctuary away from my distractions. And my librarians are pretty cool, despite all that vampire literature they've had to stack for me in the holds' shelf.

Meimei: Wine and Coelho on Loan

1) What books did you buy recently? My parents are reading this blog, so you won't find out here about the trashy bodice-rippers I just purchased on the sly. Apart from that... I just picked up Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, which I will get around to reading soon.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? Since it's freshly updated: My Life with The Saints, by James Martin (highly recommended by my sister); some yoga DVDs; a couple of books by GK Chesterton and Scott Hahn; Harry Wong's The First Days of School (more on this later) and Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. Also, LOVE (the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil collaboration), Cranium, and Living Language's In-Flight French in CD form.

*Cue Meimei's sister reading this and thinking: Girl, you have GOT to start editing that list already.*

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire...." Great Tastes Made Simple, by Andrea Immer (now Andrea Immer Robinson). This is the book that got me really interested in wine. Immer has an engaging way of writing about wine that doesn't make you feel stupid if you can't tell your Barbera apart from your Barolo. It's a pity this book is way too heavy and pricey for me to keep!

(Note from NBLB: Andrea Robinson also wrote Everyday Dining with Wine. Prepare to part with more of your money, Mei.)

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. In a just world, I would have owned a decent Filipino cookbook - a well-written one with amazing pictures, sturdy paper stock, and great recipes that won't leave my Mom screaming bloody murder for suggesting such insane substitutes should I decide to make the dish outside of the Philippines. It's a pity that Jessica Zafra can't cook and Clinton Palanca is way too high on his own self-importance to write down a decent recipe!

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. The Soul of Education, by Rachael Kessler. This was the book that really got me revved up about teaching; it's up there with Parker J. Palmer's The Courage to Teach and Harry Wong's The First Days of School (which I also haven't purchased) as the Holy Triumvirate of Books No Teacher Should Leave Behind, Ever.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made I remember paying upwards of $25 for Kevyn Aucoin's Making Faces when I first bought it here in Honolulu. Worth every flipping penny.

7) Close your eyes: if you could design your dream library, what would it look like? (Erm...you can open your eyes to type the answer...) I'm the kind of person who never leaves her books in the same place, ever... but if I must, I definitely can imagine a Victorian-style personal library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Not a lot of hardcovers (unless you count some of my ED textbooks, which I refuse to part with), but you'd best know that the ones I reach for the most would be the ones that are within eye level. No "airplane books" or double-shelving, just my fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks mingling together. Also, hidden compartments for my respective stashes of booze, herbal teas, and fine dark chocolate.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." I don't have to worry about the romance and fiction sections any more than I have to worry about the cookbooks and DIY crafts! The bargain bins at B&N and Bestsellers are lethal, though: quickie gifts, gag books, gorgeous journals, anthologies of the trashiest bodice-rippers and canned-soup recipes ever written... not to mention $2 Sudoku compilations not edited by Will Shortz. Ay naku!

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library.

From the Hawaii State Library System:
- Isabel Allende - Zorro (yes, it sounds cheesy, but I'm curious about how Allende managed to class up the joint here)
- P.G. Wodehouse - Carry On, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters (a little British humor, for a change of pace)
- Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find (I much prefer her dry Catholic wit to the balmy Southern Gothics of Faulkner)
- Ian McEwan - Saturday (I hear that this one is much better than On Chesil Beach, but I'm not touching this until after all that Wodehouse and Allende)

Also on loan from Chaminade's Sullivan Library: Coelho's The Alchemist and Allende's Of Love and Shadows, which I still need to return on Monday.

10) "I love my local library because...."

- They ENCOURAGE you to sit down and read, just about anywhere you can grab a book. It's a refreshing contrast to Barnes & Noble, where you get sales clerks every five minutes looking down their nose to tell you to stop lingering so much in the aisles and/or buy a Frappuccino if you intend to finish your book and still keep your seat in the cafe.
- In the same vein: Librarians won't give you that empty stare when you ask them for a book that you can't find anywhere, or give you a condescending sneer if they catch you with a particularly dirty title in your hands.
- Most of the public libraries that I frequent in Honolulu (Hawaii State, McCully-Moiliili, Manoa and Aina Haina) are air-conditioned in a way that's comfortable and doesn't require an extra layer of clothing.
- If there's a kids' event, you get free pizza coupons if a staffer mistakes you for a teenager. (Yes, it has happened to me!)