Trouble

Its still early December but I can tell my plan to not buy books in 2006 is already in serious trouble. Some nice literacy group just opened a bookstore in Dupont Circle. And I paid a visit on Thursday. And the place is fantastic. Almost tailor-made for me, in fact. Most of the stock is new and inxepensive (much less than the average half off cover price at a used bookstore). And the selection was overwhelming. In 20 minutes I found Francis Wheen's biography of Karl Marx, a book that I had been looking for the past few years but had never seen in a used bookstore, for 4$, and a brand new hardcover mystery novel to be used as a gift. I found about 50 things I wanted to buy.

I've been wanting to read the Marx biography primarliy because I like who wrote it, Francis Wheen, a British journalist. A few years ago I got his book How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions and really liked both it and his style. And then I found out about his Marx book and wanted to read it. (At the time I was about to go to Mississippi on vacation and thought it would be a funny book to bring along and be seen reading. No one else found this amusing.)

I found my library card and plan to return the last two books I checked out (in the summer of 1992) and will try to use the libary to save my 2006 experiment. It may work. But I'm nervous.