And So It Goes

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend;
inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx

My book shipment from the United States finally arrived from Daedelus Books. It took over seven weeks to get here, which worried me because normal seamail shipping time has been, in my past experience, almost exactly five weeks.

So why, you may ask, would I be buying books that take a month-and-a-half to arrive? Good question.

Partly, it's the source. Daedelus Books, which is a mail-order bookseller specializing in fine-quality remaindered books, has long been a fine source for new and interesting books. This was true even when I lived in Berkeley, which already has an abundant supply of fine new and used bookstores: I trust their tastes, and like being pointed to books I might have missed the first time they came out.

Partly, also, it has to do with my book buying habits. As a general rule, I don't buy books to read immediately: I tend to buy books and stockpile them, pulling out whichever titles catch my whim or which I'm in the mood for. Weeks, months, and even years go by before I take down a book I've purchased and actually read it. For me, I take the idea of having a personal library almost literally--that is, having shelves of books to draw upon for personal use, whenever I feel like it.

With habits like this, it usually doesn't make sense to rush out and buy books in hardcover when they first come out, since the speed of book acquisition doesn't make a great deal of difference. So I can save a bit of money acquiring new durable hardcover or trade paperback books, in exchange for a little patience.

(The reason I buy so many at once has to do with shipping costs: because Daedelus charges a flat $15 for the first 10 books, with a $1 charge for each additional title, I try to buy a minimum of ten titles each time. It usually means paring down from a list of twenty or more.)

So I have eleven new books for my shelves, joining the three-to-four hundred already there. Yes, I have trouble getting rid of books, too.

The new arrivals include:

Driving Over Lemons, Britisher (and former Genesis drummer) Chris Stewart's memoir of adopting to life in rural Spain. ($3.98 trade paper, $12 list price)
The Lying Stones of Marrakech, the late Stephen Jay Gould's penultimate natural history essay collection. ($5.98 trade paper, $15 list price)
A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea, John Keahey's journey through southern Italy, retracing the steps of 19th-century travel writer George Gissing. ($3.98 hardcover)
Eating Alfresco: The Best Street Food in the World, a food porn photography book by Nelli Sheffer ($4.98, $25 list price)
Yes We Have No, Nik Cohn's picaresque ramble in search of the "real" England. ($4.98 hardcover)
Italian Cuisine: The Gourmet[base ']s Companion. A glossary of Italian dishes and cooking terms, which will be, I suspect, invaluable here in Japan, since good Italian restaurants here tend to have menus, authentically, in Italian! ($2.98 at Daedelus)

(I should mention that the above titles, if you're interested, are still available as of this writing at Daedelus.)

Also in the box:

Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha by Harvey Rachlin. A look at the history and fate of some famous historical artifacts. (Still available on Amazon.com.)
River-Horse by William Least Heat-Moon. From the author of Blue Highways and PrairyErth, the account of his journey across the United States by a small boat he dubs River-Horse. (Still available on Amazon.com.)
Street Food by Clare Ferguson (writer) and Jeremy Hopley (Photographer). An even more luscious looking food porn book, with gloriously mouthwatering photographs (and recipes!) of street food from around the world. (Available new at Powell's Books)
Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud by Robert H. Parks. A trip, as the book jacket says, "through the dim back alleys of fringe science." (Available in paperback on Amazon.com.)
E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis. (Available in paperback on Amazon.com.)
Links of the day:
- Daedelus Books.
- Powell's Books: a huge bookstore based in Portland, Oregon. A great selection, and a recent source for me of books that are only available used.