Buying Books By Mistake

[rhythmaning]

I realised that I needed a guide book to Washington, since it is many years since I was last there, and there must be a lot of things I want to see. The guide I have is dated 1993…

So I walked into town and went to Waterstones on George St. In the store, there were several tables piled high with books. (It was a bookshop, after all.) Most of the titles seemed to be telling me to do something. (“Sleep With Me” screamed one; it was next to “The Girl With The One Track Mind”, which was kind of appropriate.)

A lot of the titles or their authors were familiar to me; I haven’t bought many books recently (if only because I haven’t been reading much over the last year or so; I blame LJ, myself!), and there are many things I have seen which I thought I would buy.

I had to weave between all these tempting tables to find the Travel section. By the time I found it, I had a pile of six books. (This was ok… Since they had a three-for-two offer, it was really only four books…)

The pile consisted of:

• The Accidental, by Ali Smith
  
• Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
  
• Why Do Buses Come In Threes, by Rob Eastway and Jeremy Wyndham (someone once told me why buses comes in threes, but I can’t remember, which annoys me; so this is to stop me being annoyed)
  
• A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka
  
• Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
• Who Moved My Blackberry™, by Martin Lukes (with Lucy Kellaway)
  

I had to balance these books whilst I hunted for a guide to Washington. They only had one, which I didn’t like, so instead I bought the six books I hadn’t intended and walked to the Princes St branch of Waterstones where they had several guidebooks to Washington. I also saw a whole lot more books I wanted to buy; but I reckon these six will do for the moment.

Comments

[matgb]

Heh, so one_track_girl's book is finally out then. Cool.

I used to have similar reactions to book stores. There's a good Ottakers 5 minutes walk from my place that's open late. I no longer have the bank balance to go in there, it's not safe.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

When I lived in London, there was a late night Waterstones (this was before they became the corporate bookshop); I would often find myself there at the end of an evening!

[pshtaku.livejournal.com]

That'll be the same late night bookshop which has the Cocktail Bar on the 5th floor that frankie_ecap, unblinkered, itchy_fidget and I went to last Saturday night - all dressed up to the nines - and surprisingly, we managed to escape without buying any books!

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

No, it wouldn't... Unless you were in South Ken (which I don't think you were!).

But I am amazed that you all went to Waterstones - with alcohol - and weren't seduced into buying any books.