Books, books, and more books

It was a dark and stormy night. Wait, it's not night yet. Nor is it particularly stormy, per se -- it's more drizzly than anything. Days like these are made for curling up on a comfy couch with a good book in front of a roasty fire. But this is BYU housing and I doubt a roasty fire would go over too well, especially since I don't have a fireplace. :) I did enjoy the end of Till We Have Faces earlier today, as my reward for cleaning the apartment. (Side note: I didn't actually need a reward -- cleaning is a reward in and of itself, and I really do like it.) Part I was long and didn't feel like vintage C.S. Lewis, and I was wondering what on earth was going on -- was I missing something? -- but then Part II began and it all clicked together. The final scene was wonderful. In retrospect, it would've been nice to know the story of Cupid and Psyche in advance, but on second thought it was rather a fun surprise to find out that the basic storyline is Greek. At any rate, I liked the ending and thought it was well worth the read. George MacDonald's Phantastes is next on my reading list. I read it years ago but can't remember much of what happened. It's fitting to read next, considering that it pretty much changed C.S. Lewis's life. Oh, I haven't mentioned yet that I joined the C.S. Lewis Society (local BYU club) the other day. It looks like we'll be reading The Great Divorce. More updates later.

I finally decided to go visit the used bookshop a few blocks away. I don't know why it took me so long -- months and months -- but I'm glad I went. My wallet's in turmoil, though. ;) It felt soooooooo good to wander among the tall stacks of books, with all sorts of tucked away corners formed from the seemingly thousands of bookshelves. If it had been a library, I would have curled up in one of the corners and read for an hour or two, but since it was a bookstore, I figured that probably would have weirded the proprietors out. My main concern right now, though, is to persuade myself to read books from the library first and then only buy the ones I really like. I ended up buying John le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Silmarillion (I used to have both, but I gave my copies to my younger brothers), and Luther's German translation of the Bible (in the old Gothic script). I'm definitely a sucker for books. :) (It's a good thing I'm going to become a librarian and not a bookstore owner. If I ever tried to run my own bookstore, I doubt that I'd ever be able to part with any of the books. :))