I just bought nine books (three hardcover) for six dollars and am aglow in self-satisfaction. I will only doubt my enthusiasm later. (I remember explaining to a professor with JO that a highlight of our year was receiving free books in our mailboxes for the courses we were TA ing. The prof, of the old-school tweed-clad English brand I might add, looked as though he thought our lives were considerably lacking). Thanks to my admirable self-restraint (though I might return to the sale later), I can afford to list all of my purchases with accompanying justifications:

Good as Gold by Joseph Heller. Catch 22 made the summer of 2004 worth living. I cannot remember whether LF said Gold was better or worse. Whatever his verdict, I’m sure it was the right one.

The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. I read Hungry Tide this summer. While prone to flowery language and harlequin descriptions of sweaty bodies, Ghosh’s prose beats out Arundhati Roy’s any day.

Nice Work by David Lodge. I have never read a book by David Lodge. No, not one. Nor have I read 1984. Nor Tristram Shandy. Nor Ulysses. Yes, I am an English student. I have every confidence that some day, when everyone is 87, such impossibilities will be understood. Lodge was recommended to me by AK, my new favourite conversationalist who uses words like “dossier” to witty effect at the breakfast table. Speaking of words: Try “ferociously precocious” (credit RS). Also, I have not been able to actually say “dingle dongle” aloud. I break into giggles at “ding.”

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. Z is squarely to blame.

Vanity Fair by Thakeray. No, nor Thakeray. But I will! Please stop convulsing. It will be okay.

Immortality by Milan Kundera. Delicious. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being were consumed this summer. I revel in the bittersweet.

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It was only fifty cents and is 566 pages long. That is approximately .0009 cents a page.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Prof. CO recommended this one. That is enough.

Modern Literary Theory, Eds. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. Freud! Saussure! Barthes! Lukacs!Lacan! Derrida! Butler! Bakhtin! de Man! Greenblatt! hooks! Spivak! Levinas! Sometimes, exclamation points signify desperation. Perhaps I will finally learn what the hell poststructuralism is.

Someone left the following quote on my door: “Eschew the worlds of literature and art and become familiar with the lives of workers, peasants and soldiers.” –Commune of the Red Rebels for New Literature and Art, Jiangxi Province. It reminded me: I really want a copy of Mao’s little red book. I have a feeling it would provide excellent cocktail party fodder.