What is this strange, tactile sensation...?

...oh, that's right... it's "paper".

I did something I haven't done in about two or three years.

I bought books, like physical, made-of-paper-with-printed-words kind of books.

Generally, I'm pretty laid back with most things... but I have a few odd quirks where you'd swear I was a perfect 'A' type personality.

One of those things is I'm notoriously 10 minutes early for everything.*

Another is, if I have one book in paperback, I want the rest in paperback**. I'm not talking about something semi-normal like, in a series, you have the first two books in paperback, so you feel obliged to complete the set. Nope, I buy every book that author has written in paperback.

The same holds true for my Kindle. If I first purchased an author's book digitally... there are some pretty high odds I'm going to continue on with that.

So what did I buy?

Banana Yoshimoto's latest book, "The Lake". She would be in my top-five-all-time-favourite-authors list. I've got every book she's written (which have been translated into English), even though I don't have a favourite. Her stories have such a similar dreamy flavour, they all kind of drift together in my brain.

Jostein Gaarder's semi-latest-book, "The Castle in the Pyrenees". Same as above. There is only one more of his books I've been having difficulty tracking down... "Through a Glass Darkly". One day, I assure you, it will be on my shelf... (cue maniacal laughter...***)

Antonia Michaelis' finally-in-paperback, "The Storyteller". I read her first book, "Tiger Moon", after reading a review by a North American comic artist (from San Francisco) that I quite like, and got hooked immediately. "Tiger Moon" was awesome, and I'm hoping this one will be equally enjoyable. She has one other book out... but alas! Still only in hardcover!


Other than these three, there are probably a dozen or so authors whose books I will always buy a "real" version of rather than the much easier (an more convenient for travel) Kindle version.

Sadly, I currently have an entire double-stacked bookshelf of un-read-real-books... some gathering dust for several years, including a Jostein Gaarder book my sister kindly gave me two Christmases ago.

Oddly enough, the arrival of these un-read books seem to coincide with the purchase of my Kindle...

Strange?

Suspicious?

I blame it on aliens, personally. Since that conveniently removes all blame from myself :)

Perhaps, like changing your writing space can change your writing, changing from paper to digital and back again also has further-reaching-repurcussions than I logically could imagine possible.

...but that apparently hasn't stopped me from buying these paperbacks...


And yes, I am in complete denial that there are only 2 more writing days left until NaNo is over.




* ...and you'd never want to watch me eat waffles or popcorn. It will scar you for life.

** I never buy hardcover. Hate them. They weigh a million pounds and take up too much shelf space. Of course the weight thing is mainly because, when going on vacation, I would have an entire separate suitcase filled with books that I lugged around... 1 for every day I was gone, plus 2 spares... just in case.

*** This is why you never have to worry that I will someday take over the world. My goals are rather modest, even though I can still cackle with the best of them.