I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Ours was very nice as we got together with friends and enjoyed a meal at a tapas bar and stayed out late laughing and sharing stories of travels. We need to do that more often. with regards to bookishness though we did go to Borders and our plans to share one last books and date night at our favorite spot were thwarted as the cafe section has already been closed down.
Darn. I feel like I didn’t even get to say “good-bye” to our favorite friday night hangout in a proper way. The sales have already started and as we were there we figured we might as well as look around. Most of the books were on sale for 20% off the list price but the magazines where on sale for 40% off list price. My husband was able to get a bunch of the graphic design and art magazines he enjoys and I stocked up on a few crafty magazines.
My best find though was Granta’s Best of Young Spanish Novelists issue. It features stories from writers from Boliva, Uruguay, Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. I can’t wait to read this because as far as I can tell, all of these writers are new to me. What a find.
With regards to reading this weekend, I’ve been able to catch up a bit but my reading has really been “off” this month. I’ve had two DNFs which I’ll tell you about later and I still have books I’m trying to finish from January. Anyway, I’m almost done with Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt which has been good in that it helped me get out of a slight reading funk I think I was in after those DNFs.
So that’s about it. Yep, I missed the Sunday Salon and didn’t get to bunch of other things but I’m feeling a bit more relaxed after my little blog break so I’m looking forward to catching up with you guys! So tell me, what have I missed?
That’s sad that your Borders is shutting down. It is also sad that everything is happening so quickly! That means that people have all ready lost their jobs. I wonder if they were even given time to process everything…
I hope I can get out of my reading slump quickly!
I am sorry to hear your Borders was one of the ones impacted by the closures–and especially sad that you didn’t get to say goodbye properly. as Granta’s Best of Young Spanish Novelists sounds like a great find! I hope you’ll share some of the authors you discover through that issue.
I hope you have a great week, Iliana.
It’s always so sad to see a bookstore closing down, no matter how big or small the size it is.
I haven’t been reading a lot since the beginning of this year, and I blame it on the shorter journey to and from work after our office relocation, haha. I’ve one DNF this year so I’m hoping that’d be the last, but who knows? 😉
Hope you have a great week, Iliana!
It is so sad to hear that all the Borders are shutting down. It is so depressing.
Sounds like you had a nice weekend. It is sad about Borders ;(
Oh, I’ve just received my copy of that issue of Granta as well. It looks so good. Are you planning to read it in small portions, over a period of time, or straight-forward from start to finish? It’d be great to have company with it, but I realize that I read short story collections (spread out over a period of time) in a way that doesn’t work for a lot of readers.
Oh how sad that your Borders closed but I like your idea of sending it off with a last visit.
My local Borders is also closing and I went on Saturday for the start of the sale. I picked up a few books for 20% off, but it was so packed with people that I couldn’t really look for much.
We have two Borders store in our area and one is closing. We also went there this weekend and I got some magazine and stocked up on some fun birthday cards. I rarely go to this store but go to the one closer to me almost weekly so I do hope they don’t close. We have spent many date nights at Borders too.
I’m mourning the loss of Borders in my area too. My favorite one is closing. I will really miss it!
I spent some time at Borders this weekend too, and was disappointed to find that their cafe was closed. Oh, well. That Granta issue certainly sounds interesting!
Wow, Borders is not wasting any time, are they? Sorry to hear you didn’t even get one last proper date night. Are you going to try and find another bookstore to take its place?