Book Buying Spree

Borders was having another huge discount offer (they seem almost periodic now), and I decided to make use of it to brighten up my life with some serious book buying. Strangely enough, I purchased only one new book the previous month (not counting another book purchased as a gift to a friend). It was a second hand copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, purchased at a bargain $9 at a Bras Basah bookstore while on the way back from the National Library building. That is not to say that I didn't spend a significant amount of time browsing, perusing, handling and accumulating scores of titles. I merely restricted myself to getting most of them from the library and ultimately returning many of them unread or at least uncompleted.

This prudence in the area of book buying was not to last, despite my best intentions for this to be so. I first went down to Border's on Friday afternoon. Borders was not only having a coupon discount promotion (30% off for any single book, with an additional 10% off for Border's members) but a storewide discount for anyone (35% off if you buy 5 titles or more, additional 10% for members). I printed out 4 coupons just in case I didn't have that many titles to buy, but as has proven so often in the past, the real challenge was trying not to buy too many titles. Worse still, I ended up going down to Borders again on Sunday afternoon with my sister after a family lunch at Ichiban Boshi.

In sum, the damage was as follows:

Islam: The Religion and the People by Bernard Lewis
The Messengers: The meaning of the Life of Muhammed by Tariq Ramadan
The Whiter Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008 Booker Prize Winner)
Changing Places by David Lodge
Shakespeare's Language by Frank Kermode
Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Other Colours by Orhan Pamuk
Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz
Microtrends by Penn and Zalesne

My sister also got the following:

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Social Intelligence by Daniel Goldman
a Paperchase Tote bag
Quirkology
a Horse book
a CD/book on beginner's Malay

Regarding the purchases, I have made it a habit to read the Booker Prize winning (and often the shortlisted) novels, so I just had to purchase the White Tiger, this year's winner. Ramadan's book on the Prophet Mohammed had been recommended to me by a friend (Linda from RSIS) so taking her advice I decided to buy (and hopefully, read) it. Bernard Lewis is an expert on Islam and his book represents a basic primer on Islam, its very sects and beliefs which is well written and easy to read.

Given Barack Obama's recent victory in the US Presidential election both my sister and I thought it beneficial to buy his two bestselling novels, to get a more in depth look at the man and his ideas. We were both more interested in Dreams of My Father, his autobiographical account of his family and his search for an identity.

The Audacity of Hope is a far more political book, written when Obama's star was in the ascendancy, a front-lining speech to the Democratic National Convention already under his belt, and just about to begin his term as the junior Senator from Illinois. It seems commonplace, compulsory even for an aspiring politician (often candidates for the Presidency) to write a book, outlining in broad strokes their manifesto, and why they should be the 'chosen one'. Both books offer a glimpse into Obama's guiding principles and should make interesting reading.