After dinner, to my joy, Elizabeth’s Bookshop was still open. We wandered around the shop, browsing. I was tempted by The Paradise Papers, Movers and Shakers: The 100 Most Influential Figures in Modern Business and 500 Self-Portraits, but all that disappeared when I found the 3-volume Penguin Classics set of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, a bargain at $42 for the set ($14 per volume) – a bargain! This means I have spent $133.50 on books since Friday. Have to stop this bingeing – am going to impose a moratorium on visiting bookshops for the next fortnight (at least!).
I’ve always wanted to read this work, but my attempts to borrow it from the library have always been foiled – everytime I’ve wanted to borrow it, volume one is always out on loan. Now I have my own set… I don’t know if I will be able to make it through these 3365 pages – the blogosphere is scattered with tales of people who started reading this monstrous work and abandoned it – but I’ll try (there are also people who’ve enjoyed it). Although, if it gets too tough/boring maybe I should read Alain de Botton instead.
Oh and on a lighter note, have a play with these if all this talk of reading thousands of pages has gotten you interested in reading something: the Literature Map (type in an author’s name and you get a cloud of other possibly related authors’ names) and Gnod (or is it Gnooks? author suggestion-thingy). Courtesy of Bibliobibuli.
technorati tags: Fremantle, books, Proust, literature, LiteratureMap
3 Comments
OH that literature map was very, very cool! … unfortunately, i’ve added new things to my ‘to-read’ list.
Volume 1 always on loan? That’s what holds are for 😛 I surf my local library’s catalogue before I drop in and place any holds I need to before making the trek to go.
Of course when I borrow from work I have the joy of having books magically arrive on my desk at random moments whenever they are available.
Miss L: I know what you mean! I put in a few authors and found names I have never even heard of before, so I’m going to have to investigate!
Fiona: No but yeh but no but.. whenever I want to read Proust the urge doesn’t last all that long and by the time the book is there I’m onto something else.. Holds and requests seem to work a treat for any book other than Proust 🙂