Tag: book-blog

Books: A Very Dangerous Game

I play a very dangerous game: I find a book at the thrift store that is right up my alley. It isn’t on sale. It isn’t on the list of books that I own (a very well cultivated and extensive list, I might add.)

But, I KNOW that I have this book. Haven’t seen it in a long time because I know it is in the back row of the shelf. But… it isn’t on my list. I have the World War II set of these, maybe I have this mixed up with those?

So, what do I do. Buy this at full price, find out I already have it, and have to bring it back for one of those annoying refunds where they have to call the manager up to the front to issue a refund card? Or, let it sit at the store and take a risk that I already have it. Hope that if I don’t have it, it will still be at the store. Wait a week, hope it is still there so that I can get it for half-off?

The trauma. I know in my bones that I have this book. I take the risk of leaving at the store, and the first thing I do when I get home… there it is! Turns out I bought it off an eBay auction in 2008, and it was with the World War II set of them in the back row, as predicted. That back row is tricky because unlike the front row, where I see the books every day, the back row is hidden and it is easy to forget what books are there.

Anyway. It is like playing the lottery in a way. Today, I win! The disturbing part is that there was a book on my shelf that wasn’t on my list. I’m quite a stickler with this list. Looks like I’m actually quite a… failure with this list.

Actually, that list has kept me from buying the same book many, many times, (books are often reprinted with different covers, things like that make obscure books in my library easy to purchase again on accident.) so this can be written off as a glitch, never to occur again.

The Firm

Back in 1991, when I was pushing a broom at Safeway on the night crew, (extremely boring) I was walking by the book section (incredibly interesting when pushing a broom over the entire store) and I saw the caption on this paperback: “Irresistible… seizes the reader on the opening page and propels him through 400 more…”. Yeah, right. I didn’t buy that, but then again, I did. I gave the book a shot. Well, Peter Prescott from Newsweek was absolutely correct! I read that book within a day or two, one of the most fun reads I’ve ever experienced. None of the subsequent Grisham novels did as well with me, I read five or six more and then never read him again. The movie turned out really well, too.

I read exactly six Stephen King books around the same time, they were the cool kind of book to carry around at school. And around the same time as The Firm, I read six Dean Koontz books as well, and that was it. All three authors were pretty good, however, examples of where I was just done with all of them even though they most likely have a lot of great books I haven’t read. I’d get back into them again if I didn’t have as many reading projects as I currently to, I’m not really looking for more to read! I’m still just past halfway through my 52-book Vince Flynn/Brad Thor/Kyle Mills re-read.

I saw this paperback at the thrift store yesterday and it reminded me of that wonderful read.

However, I do have a copy of The Firm in hardback, and it will always have a place on my shelf due to the great read that it was. My original paperback, I lent out to a friend and never saw it again.