i want it that way

I frequent libraries quite a bit, every three weeks actually, since that is the deadline they provide when borrowing.

And I certainly felt the pressure this week when I had to return books and pick up something I'd reserved.

I guess it's really my fault for being kiasu and picking up so many books. I could've stuck to four, but I can't resist it when I grab one off the shelf and then just a bit further down I see something else and it's like dang, I have been wanting to read this one! So I look down at the four books I'm already hefting, chuck the next one on top of the pile.

At this time I really should pull myself away from browsing the shelves, but honestly that's the best part of libraries and bookstores. I'm not the kind who can hang around actually reading (I never understand how people can do it) but I read a lot of litblogs and browse amazon lists and other crazed book sites, and whenever I spot a familiar title or author, a 'ding' sounds in my head and I just have to gingerly ease the book off the shelf and flip a few pages.

So the pile I'm carrying grows to about 6, 7, 8. I drag the haul over to a chair or an empty shelf and weed it out. I usually don't succeed in much weeding - at the most I get rid of one, or in extreme cases, two. And then I whip out my lifesaver - my mother's library card (I also carry my sister's around!) as she's got the membership where you can borrow multimedia eg DVDs and more importantly, more books. Sometimes she joins me on my library haunts and I negotiate with her on how many more I can scrounge. (My mom borrows art books and the occasional recipe book, in case you'd like to know.)

On my day off on Thursday, I head to the Orchard library, braving the hordes of schoolkids roaming around aimlessly, to pick up George and Sam, this book I had reserved (it was in some godforsaken part of the island) on the strength of an excerpt I read in Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree. It's written by a woman about her two autistic boys, and one more, non-autistic, son. I'm only into the third chapter but it's terribly moving, brave and also funny.
More on that when I'm done.

But for now, Richard Perez's The Losers' Club
I think I picked this up on reading about it on some litblog. But I admit that while flipping through it in the library, I wasn't too impressed. I suppose that's why it ended up being read last out of all the books I'd borrowed the last round (first to be devoured was the Oscar Wilde). But once I started this one, I just couldn't stop.

It was well paced, and funny but also a bit sad. And it's a strange way to describe it but, it was very much alive.

The book's essentially about a struggling poet who gets obsessed with personal ads, and the women he meets through them. I hate writing summaries about plots so I think a one-liner will do.

Here's my haul
Paul Auster - Timbuktu
Siri Hustvedt - What I Loved
ZZ Packer - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Stephen Chbosky - Perks Of Being A Wallflower (yeah its a coming of age story, aimed at teens, but I've always thought it's such a great title)
Charlotte Moore - George And Sam