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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Sanskrit for Dummies, and Other Tales from the Bargain Shelf

I went book shopping yesterday. Which was not really a good idea--I am up to my eyeballs in work and down to the sofa cushions for finances.

But the heart wants what it wants. And my heart wanted to avoid work and buy books. My heart is also a sucker for a bargain, and I knew that the local academic bookstore was having a sale.

This bookstore carries mostly books from university presses, but many/most of them are for a general audience so there's a lot to choose from for good non-fiction. But on the bargain shelf? Not so much.

Here were some of my finds:

Bumblebee Economics

A commodities market with just pollen and honey would certainly simplify matters.

What Are Freedoms For?

I'm pretty sure that having some egghead tell you what to do with your freedoms profoundly misses the point.

Why Do Men BBQ?

I'm pretty sure that having to have some egghead explain it to you profoundly misses the point.

In the Fascist Bathroom

Where the spycams don't just record, they issue instructions?

[actually, I looked inside this one and it looked pretty cool--I almost bought it. It's about the postpunk era and devotes much time to the very best band in the world, The Mekons. Still, it's a funny title.]

Pictures at an Execution

Surprised this one didn't sell out for the holidays...

Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making

Only three?

Making Babies

I flipped this one open, hoping for a how-to, only to discover the much less sexy subtitle: "The Science of Pregnancy." Sigh.

Then my greedy little bookbuying eyes saw a collection of Loeb's; those editions of Greek and Latin texts with hilariously bad facing-page translations. I remember once memorizing almost a whole volume of LoebHorace in order to pass an exam I hadn't studied for. The professor wrote "Loebism" in the margin about 30 times. I guess I wasn't the first person to try that trick...

But they're useful volumes, so I took a gander at what made it to the bargain shelf:

Pliny's Natural History, Books XX-XXIII

Well, if you haven't read I-IXX, what's the point, right? You don't want to start in the middle. Not with natural history.

Flavius Josephus's The Jewish War

Surprisingly, obscure historiography wasn't a big seller this season. Go figure.

Aristotle's The Generation of Animals

I'll wait for the movie.

posted by Feemus at 8:05 AM

12 Comments:

  • Feemus I forgot to say how much I love this post. Did you check the publisher and acknowledgments for the "picture" book? I'd be interested to know.

    You know, though, there was a book circulating in my home state of Wisconsin about 25 years ago called, "Wisconsin Death Trip." It had pictures and stories of Wisconsin in the 1800's and was all about death and suicides and murders and what was so interesting about it (and it WAS so interesting!) was the way people seemed to regard death -- the way they responded to it. It was a great book.

    Any chance at all that "pictures" was like that? In that spirit?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:43 AM  

  • Here's the blurb from the "picture book":

    This book is about murder--in life and in art--and about how we look at it and feel about it. At the center of Wendy Lesser's investigation is a groundbreaking legal case in which a federal court judge was asked to decide whether a gas chamber execution would be broadcast on public television. Our fascination with murder gets its day in court as Lesser conducts us through the proceedings, pausing along the way to reflect on the circumstances of violent death in our culture.

    It actually looks pretty interesting. So did the barbeque one, for that matter. I let my impulse to make fun get the better of accurate reproting, I'm afraid...

    By Blogger Feemus, at 10:28 AM  

  • Aha! Great! And the post was very funny, exactly as it should have been. Thanks.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:05 AM  

  • Wisconsin? I have a little fixation with the midwest.

    I'm from the NW and I live in the NE, but the Midwest seems so appealing. Esp. Madison or Minneapolis (which are sort of the same town in my imagination).

    By Blogger Feemus, at 12:16 PM  

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