In Book News

I went to my local, podunk library today to pick out a couple of non-fictions and the book Anna recommended in her comment yesterday. I found Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and was proud to reply to the inquisitive librarian who helped me find it that no, I was not reading it for a summer reading list, but because, lately, "I've been really into" African literature and stories. He recommended the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, which I didn't pick up; however, I did pick up Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology, which includes authors the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. Du Bois. That I picked up this book made me chuckle; it reminded me of a high school English literature book, something I NEVER would have voluntarily read in high school (or even college).

All the PoliSci books I was looking for were either Bestsellerers (and therefor non-requestable and/or unavailable), so I just perused the Bestsellers shelf and picked up Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, only because she's been filling in for Maureen Dowd, a one-sided critic of the Bush Administration and columnist of the NY Times. Vowell is very similar to Dowd and, though I find both of their criticisms to be narrow-minded and of the typical liberal rhetoric, their columns are usually funny and always an uncomplicated read.

Yes, I still look for the comic strip in the Times. There isn't even so much as a political cartoon to be found within!