books books books

mall book sale left me with these four beauties (all for $8 i might add! bargain!)

-European Paintings in German Art Galleries (lol it sounds like the most random book ever. i bought this one because i needed to use the debit machine and i could only use it if i spent more than $5, so i grabbed it caz it was $1 [i'd bought the Guinness one, earlier])
-Guinness Book of World Records 2003, $3
-Art Masterpieces from the Renaissance to the Present Day, $2 (when i opened this one a second ago to take the webcam pic, a bunch of dusty crud fell out...hmmm)
-Life Smiles Back, $2 (a collection of classic pictures from life magazine)

hurray books. i don't understand when people tell me they don't read. i get it if you don't have time during the school year or something, or if you work ridiculous amounts, but still. for me as soon as summer hits, the first thing i do is go to the library.

book update:
distant star by roberto bolano, i'd give it a 3/5.
An unnamed narrator attempts to piece together the life and works of an enigmatic would-be poet turned military assassin during Pinochet's regime in Chile. In the early 1970s Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was a little-known poet living in southern Chile. After the military coup of 1973 that brought in the dictatorship of General Pinochet, he embarked upon a new career that involved him in committing murder and other brutalities, and subsequently led to his emergence as a lieutenant in the Chilean air force under his actual name, Carlos Wieder. Some time later the narrator, now held in a prison camp, looks up and sees a World War II airplane writing the first words of the "Book of Genesis" in smoke in the sky. The aviator is none other Carlos Wieder, launching his own version of the New Chilean Poetry. Roberto Bolano's novel is a chilling investigation of the fascist mentality and the limits of evil, as seen in its effects on a literary sensibility, as well as a gripping intellectual thriller. It shows a great writer at the height of his powers.
it was pretty anticlimatic, but i still happened to like it. i'm not sure if i would reccommend this book or not, it depends on who was interested. ya, i liked it.

right now i'm in the midst of the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde. so far it's ok. one thing i dislike about stories based in the 18th (or 19th?) century is that everyone meets and then says they're in love. someone just got engaged to an actres he spoke to once. oh the good ol' days. bascally the story is about this young handsome man who has his picture painted, he sees his beauty in the picture and wishes that the picture would age instead of him and that he would stay young and beautiful forever. and so that happens i guess (i haven't gotten there yet). we'll see.

update on free chocolate on my no chocoalte month:
i saw half of a chocolate bar lying on the sidewalk. i guess the chocolate gods think i must be desperate.


p.s: i bought a lomo camera off ebay for under $20 (^ that one actualy). kinda pumped. and i got time off for folk fest so tickets will be bought asap. cool.