I almost called this post Books Bought in Boston, but looking over the list again I realized that only one of the books had actually been bought in the city of Boston. Since the Boarders closed down there are no major bookstores in Boston's Downtown crossing area where I usually do most of my post Christmas shopping. Barnes & Noble's store there closed back in 2006. This is especially hard on my dad, who prefers to hang out in bookshops while the ladies in the family hunted bargains at Maceys.
Both properties are currently vacant, as is the massive building formerly occupied by Filenes Basement. The record store Fye's is having a closing down sale. Fye's actually replaced an (I think) independent record store Stawberries, where I got the only music recommendation I have ever got in a record store from a clerk who, seeing I was buying a stack of Ani Difranco cds, said I should check out Dar Williams. Good advice that.
Anyway, all this to say that Downtown Crossing has become grim and depressing, so I mostly hung out in Cambridge and consented to being driven to malls this year.
Where? Barnes & Nobel, Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington, MA
The location of this shop epitomises the thing about America I loath the most, namely that it so often a country for cars, not people. On one side of the Middlesex Turnpike is the Burlington Mall, which is quite a good mall, my mum and my sister are always keen to visit it, on the other side in a nice big B&N. There is no possible way to walk from one to the other. No overpass, no underpass, not even a piddling cross walk. There isn't even a reasonable way to take you life into your own hands and just peg it across the road.
So after two hours of shopping in the mall I got my dad to drive me over, he napped in the car for an hour and a half and then we drove back to the mall to pick up my mum and sister. This is stupid.
Why? I felt like I'd heard of De Lint before but couldn't remember anything specific, so this was more or less a whim.
Not only have I already read The Bone Key before, I already own a copy. But the new edition has a new intro plus story notes (I love story notes) and beautiful new cover art. Also, I got the first edition second hand, which is no good to Monette, and I love her so, money meet mouth.
My mission to own all of Elizabeth Bears books continues. Mistress is the third book in the Edda of the Burdens series. I'm missing the 2nd books, one of the things I've learned about shopping for series in meatspace is that shops will not stock them in order. Buy when you see them. Put them together later.
The Damage: €29.53
Which is an absolutely lovely shop, just stuffed full of books enough to be cozy without being cramped. Good selection of used books in the basement.
Why?
This is a twofer, after loving
Under the Poppy I'm keen to read more of
Koja's stuff, this also falls into my plan to read more horror.
The Damage: €5.80
44) Hammered - Elizabeth Bear (new,
pb, signed)
45) Dust - Elizabeth Bear (new,
pb)
This is an absolutely lovely small shop just of Mass ave, very close to central station on the red line. When I was in there was a guy explaining to a group of people at a table in the middle of the shop how to play a card game, a little kid rooting through a box of cards, and on old man buying about $100 worth of vampire books to be shipped to California talking the clerks ear off about Anne Rice.
Why? Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette did a signing here in November, so I figured it would be a good place to fill in some of the gaps in my collection. I had to restrain myself from buying everything she's ever written, repeating "you can only bring home 23kg" over and over.
The Walton book was a bit of a fuck up, since it's out in paperback, this is what happens wen I'm in a shop without wifi.
The Damage: €38.60
Where? Barnes & Nobel, Prudential Centre, Boston, MA
Why?
The Damage: €13.11
Total Spend in Massachusetts: €87.04
Total Spend: €457.28
