You’re always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is to leand her your books. You think she’ll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn’t have the time
to read them, & she’s afraid if she sees you again
you’ll expect her to talk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.

~Lending Out Books by Hal Sirowitz from Good Poems.

Why don’t you borrow some library books instead? Thank you to Maggie for the reminder of National Public Library Week. I may be a bit late but I say any day is good day to celebrate the library.

I took the day off from work today to take my mom shopping, and we spent most of the day at the mall and running around. Luckily she also wanted to stop off at Barnes & Noble to check out some of her new agey magazines and books. I decided it was the perfect time to stock up on some books for upcoming book groups.

I know I said for book challenges I’m trying to stick with books already from my stacks so at least I think this helps keep me from going overboard but who am I really kidding right.

Anyway, I bought Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Stefanie has suggested this one before and as I plan to read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis for the Once Upon A Time challenge I thought it’d be good to have this as a complement to that book.

My other purchase was Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. I actually tried to read Don Quixote when I was in high school and I think I got half way through the book but lost interest. I’m afraid I was mainly reading sappy teen romance novels and/or horror stories back then. I think I’m better prepared now to read this book and well with such good company over at Tilting at Windmills, how could I resist?

Finally, my last purchase was The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. My track record with the Slaves of Golconda has been terrible but I do go in with the best of intentions. I’d never heard anything about this book but I like what the synopsis says.

Well, I’m a bit tired from all the shopping today and almost wish I had been able to spend more time reading but I had a good time with my Mamá so I’ll take that too.