Adventures in Half-Price Books

To reflect Christmas loot and a recent trip to Half-Price Books—how I have missed that bookstore from DC, and how nice of them to welcome me home with an additional 20 percent–off sale—I've updated the sidebar with some new books and music. Two of those books in particular I'm anxious to crack: Mimesis, which has been teasing me for so long that I'm embarrassed that I never read it earlier; and The Adventures of Augie March, a novel that causes Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens to compete as to who can out-effuse the other in praising Saul Bellow for writing it.

A word on Half Price: It's a treasure no matter what, but may I submit that the Mesquite, Texas location might be less treasurable than some others. The "Philosophy/Religion," naturally enough, was more religion than philosophy—but by about a 4:1 ratio, I'd wager. Two walls of books on religion? that spilled over into an entire religious display island? and weren't theology texts, mind you, but advice books for bringing the spirit of the Early Church into your customer service department or whatever? It was a bit much. By the time I was at the front counter behind a couple with a stack of books including Ann Coulter's How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) and the like, I thought we had crossed over into parody.