I can count on one hand the amount of books I remember giving up on and not finishing.  I actually remember these as I feel bad doing it, as if I am not giving the book a chance, or insulting the author (although I know they will never know anyway), or like I just picked the wrong book at the wrong time.  I can only think of three books in the last ten years I did not finish, and I will probably read at least two of them to make up for it.  The third (if I can remember the name) is a total write-off.  It was just that bad.

The reason I bring this up is I have actually set aside The Paper Men by William Golding, maybe to return to it, maybe not.  I don’t know if it is because I put the pressure on myself to finish a certain about of novels before the year end, or if I really wouldn’t be able to get into it no matter when I read it.  I loved Lord of the Flies in highschool, and The Inheritors was a great book by him that I read two years ago in the Philippines, but The Paper Men is just… I don’t know.  I can’t get into the story, the characters, or anything about it.  I tried.  I even went back and re-read the first chapter to see what I missed, but I still feel lost and bored.

My back-up bookmark is still inside at the point I set it down (Page 60), making me feel like I should go back and pick it up, just to finish it, but I can’t right now.  It just isn’t my kind of book.  And believe me, I will read just about anything to be entertained.

The other books I remember giving up on were a while back.  Maybe six years ago I gave up on a book.  I remember buying to bargain books that looked pretty good and wanting something to read that I had never heard of.  The first was The Dominion of Wyley McFaddon by Scott Gardiner, which I really enjoyed.  The other was so unreadable I actually forget the title.  I have searched online, but I just can’t find it.  I remember the cover and it was about a old estate turned into a set of apartments, but beyond that, I can’t recall the name.  I read more than half of the book and remember setting it down and wondering what it was that I had been reading each night.  I just couldn’t do it, so I stopped.

Another (which I dread to say) was an Elmore Leonard book.  Actually, I gave up on two Elmore Leonard books in my time, but that was before I really got into him.  I bought Toshmingo Blues when I was first going to come to Taiwan to visit a friend who was teaching here.  I bought it for the plane ride, but that fell through, so I tried to red it at home and just, well, didn’t enjoy it.  That was actually my second attempt at a Leonard novel that didn’t work.  My first was back in university where I found hardcover editions of Maximum Bob and Get Shorty for next to nothing at a used book store.  I tried to read Bob, but gave up after only a few chapters.  I still have both those books, but never picked them up again.  I do have Get Shorty here in Taiwan now and will make up for never having read it before very soon.  I am a huge Leonard fan now, but back then I was reading more for my classes than enjoyment and Leonard didn’t fit.

I know before that I had to have given up on a lot more books, but really, I usually stick it out no matter what.  I guess I always hope someone will do the same for me one day when they don’t like one of my novels.  I’ve read some real garbage, but I always give it the chance to turn it around in the end.  Sometimes they do, but a lot of the time they don’t.  But, I am a sucker for how an author finally ends a story, right down to the last line, so I kind of feel like I have to get there, no matter what.

As for The Paper Men, the book that should be #47 on my list for 2009-2010, it will sit, abandoned for now.  Not so much because I have a self-imposed time limit on my reading at the moment, but because I really feel like reading right now and I want to read something that really gets me wanting to read more, and not make me want to put in old DVDs of Titus and Kenny vs Spenny. 

To make up for it, I read the graphic novel (yes, that counts) Parker the Hunter by Darwyn Cooke based on the old pulp novels by Richard Stark which I cannot recommend more, and I read about half of the Philip K. Dick novel The Man in the High Castle today.  I should be able to finish Castle tonight or tomorrow and maybe get one more in before the new year hits, making my total forty-nine books… with about fifty-five yet to be read on my shelves and more to come probably. 

I really hate to give up on a book, but this time, I think it has to be done…

So we are at December 22nd and I have read two of the four novels I want to finish before the new year.  I went with Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard and Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman.  Both good books, although one was very misleading with it’s description.  You can never go wrong with Elmore Leonard though.  I actually didn’t enjoy him back in university when I tried to read Get Shorty and Maximum Bob, and then again later when I tried Toshmingo Blues, but now I can’t get enough of him.

So, two more to read in nine days, but I lose two days for the weekend.  I should have been almost through the third book now, but I got sidetracked and haven’t been to the gym because of my back again.  Not sure what to read tonight, but I scored a great little set of used books from a Taiwanese shop that really just wanted to get rid of the English books in stock.  Eight books for about $10…

The short stories book has so many authors I love, or have always wanted to read.  I can’t even begin to list the authors inside, but I have only ever read one of these short stores, and that was just a few months back.  I really thought it would be a book with lots of stories I had already read, but this is like a jackpot for me!  And the Elmore Leonard Western book is the same size as a Chinese epic, so it will take a good amount of reading to get through it. 

I have to get a new book shelf this week.  I tried to keep less than 20 books in the house at any time, but a friend of mine is moving out of a place that has about 300+ novels that the landlord doesn’t care about, so I ‘borrowed’ a good amount of them as well.  Lots of mystery and crime novels there as well as some classics (Picture of Dorian Grey) and some random stuff. 

So much to read, and I have all these new Kung Fu movies I bought as well.  I need a vacation just to keep myself busy with movies and books.  Chinese New Year can’t come fast enough…

I know I have obsessed about this on here before, but I am still working on my list of books read since I came to Taiwan.  I wrote everyone I can remember (from posts on here) into a book ,but I am still missing three novels I read near the end of 2008.  Well, if I don’t remember what they are (someday when I’m old and gray I will wake up in a cold sweat screaming the name of a novel is my guess), at least I know my total.  I like to break it down into 24 month periods since I never really kept track year by year, but from November 2006 to December 2008 I read 49 novels.  I guess when you look at it, two books a month isn’t that impressive, but some months I read more and some I was learning to teach and didn’t get around to much.  I actually think the number is a little low for my tastes, but I can work on that.

This year, as of today (December 14th) I have read 44 novels since January of 2009.  I’m low… and I know where I went wrong.  I got a PSP and was obsessed with playing it before bed for a month or two.  Also I read two of the worst books I have read in a long time and since I never like to give up on a book, I worked through them, but at a very slow pace which took almost 2 months for two books.  Now I’m cramming.  I don’t want to cheat and go with small books, but I do think Gabriel Garcia Marquez novellas are acceptable since they are usually about 150 pages and they are so chocked full of quality writing and amazing stories that you can’t blame me for reading them.

So, book #44 was Slaughterhouse Five (I would like to read parts 1-4 but I can’t seem to find them) and now I am looking at the bookshelves to see what I should read next.  I am avoiding anything too large as I would like to clear my shelves to make room for some new ones I am getting this month from some online auctions in Taiwan where most English novels are less than a dollar each.  I would love to read more Vonnegut, as I find him very easy and entertaining to read, but I never read the same author back to back.  I like to change things up and read different styles and authors instead of obsessively plowing through one author’s entire collection.

So, I now have seventeen days to read four novels… I hope.  I will be okay with three, but I want four.  Hell, I would be over the moon if I could break fifty novels before 2001, but I don’t think I can cram them in without losing a little of the enjoyment of reading.  Plus I have three classes to prepare for their end of semester exams which takes some of my time, and I need to look at both the Lonely Planet books for The Philippines (for Chinese New Year) and Singapore (four day weekend in April) and figure out some travel plans.  If the Lonely Planet books counted in my list, I would be over 50 easily as I have read and studied the books on Cambodia, Vietnam, Borneo, India, Thailand, Bangkok and the Philippines before each trip, but I just can’t bring myself to counting them.

Now, I did just think of something.  I did read two books of Chinese Poetry.  One has no English name to it and has about 200 ancient Chinese poems in it that I read through to look for good ones for my tattoo.  I also read another with has 300 poems in it as well from the Tang Dynasty.  I did read most if not all of the poems looking for the right poem for my tattoo, so technically they could go on the list for this past 24 month period as well.  This is what I will do, if I can hit my 48 book goal, I will add those books of poetry in and make it an even 50.  If don’t make it, they don’t count. 

Okay, off to my bookshelves to look for the next novel to read.  I have no clue what it is going to be, but it better live up to the hype and build up I’ve just created in my mind.  This is the final stretch… now, where’s my Cookie Monster bookmark?

They won’t let me post this on my own Grandfather’s obituary page online because it contains lyrics from a song that has always reminded me of him.  So, here is what will not be in his obituary page…

When we were young we had a ping pong table in our basement.  I have no clue when we got it, as it always sat at the side of the basement, blocking the view of the basement from the stairs.  There was only a small gap between it and the ceiling when it was put away and our cats used to stand on just the right step to watch us as we played down there. But, every once in a while the table would be put down and we could play.

Any chance I got I would play.  I would play friends, my sisters, my father, or just put the one side up and play by myself.  I was pretty good in my own mind and could usually beat most of my opponents.  I couldn’t do top spins or shots that would make the ball basically drop dead on the table, but I had a good serve and control of the table.  I always envisioned myself as the champion of the basement.  Then, one day my Poppa came to visit.

I think I was about ten years old, or maybe a year or two older. I’m not sure.  The table was down and my grandparents were there to see us for some occasion or another.  I remember playing ping-pong in the basement with one of my friends and my Poppa came down to see what I was doing.  I was a little cocky in the game and thought that if my Poppa and my father had come down to see me play, I might as well put on a little bit of a ping pong clinic.  I hit my best shots, got in my sneaky just over the net into the far corner serve and beat my friend pretty easily.  That was when Poppa asked if he could play me.

I remember thinking that this was a seventy year old man I was playing and I should maybe be nice to him.  I also had my self-imagined championship to defend, so I served him one of, what in my mind was, my killer serves.  Barely even moving his arm he sent the ball right back past me before I even knew what happened.  He smiled at me the way he always did with his permanently tanned skin, smile lines around his eyes and his silver pencil-thin moustache, and said with that Bristol accent that never wavered, ‘Try again Mathew.’

I got down into position, lined up the shot and hit the table at the perfect angle to just catch the corner of the table.  He moved like a cat, sending it back to me and a small rally ensued until I tried to hit him with a power shot, which ended up being returned at light speed.  I swear the ball could have been imprinted into the wall behind me.  I looked at him and he just smiled.  I looked at my father sitting on the stairs and he had a bigger smile on his face.  I looked back at Poppa and said, ‘You know how to play?’ and all I got in return was a nod of the head and that Poppa smile.

The rest of the game was like the savage beating of a young cocky fighter by the old, weathered master in a classic kung fu movie.  When I think back on it now I would dare say he had some Chinese blood in his veins with those serious ping-pong, kung fu, Jedi moves he was dishing out.

As we played, or better yet, as he whooped my ass, he would tell me stories of how when he was in the war in England sometimes all there was to do was play ping-pong.  He practiced and played and practiced some more until he was one of the best in the British Royal Air Force.  He told me he played people all over the place, from many different countries during World War II and beat most of them.  He even tried to teach me some of his moves.

I remember the lesson on putting the top spin on the ball to make it hit and shoot past your opponent faster.  He showed just how to do it and let me try.  I tried and tried and got it so that it was noticeable that I was doing it.  He then went to the other end of the table and fed me the ball to shoot it back with the top spin.  I fired a few back to him and he said it was good, but I had to be careful that if the other person does return it it would come back even faster.  Confident in my new skill I fired him a good one and the next thing I knew the ball was bouncing off my chest with the speed and accuracy of a sniper.  He hit it back so hard it felt more like a golf ball hitting me than a little ping pong ball.

I remember both of their smiles, Poppa’s as he let me think I was doing well, then surprising me with some fancy Jedi shot that would be gone before I saw it coming, and the smile of my father sitting on the stairs, entertained by his seventy year old father giving his ten year old son a lesson in ping pong he would never forget.

I asked my dad if he wanted to play Poppa and he just laughed and said he wasn’t that dumb.  My mother and grandmother came down at that time and immediately I told them how good Poppa was at ping-pong and how cool it was.  My mother was excited that I was excited, and my Nannie told my Poppa to be good and be easy on me.  He said, with that smile I learned later on in life meant that something devious was going through his head, ‘Of course, we’re just having fun.’

And as the women walked back up the stairs, Poppa asked me if I was ready.  I turned to face him and before I knew it, a ping pong ball ricocheted off my forehead and both my seventy year old grandfather and my forty year old father laughed hysterically at ten year old me. 

I picked up the ball and just looked at him; this strong old British man, almost always in some sort of a brown suit, with silver hair and a smile that could ease even the most savage beast.  He looked so innocent, but I was quickly learning it was just a cover.  I kept my eyes on him when I served the ball and it was then I realized that the man on the other side of the table was so much more than just my grandfather.  I was playing ping pong with my own, personal Jedi.  He was Obi Wan Kenobi with a ping-pong paddle…

Damn, I never realized how much Poppa looked like Alec Guinness!

Some people may know about how obsessed I am with Bob Dylan.  It’s a long story how it started and why it has kept up, but I guess I can put it into one quick little sentence…  The wrong girl came along at just the right time and played me a song that struck a chord with me and it stayed forever.  She, by the way, didn’t. 

About a year before coming to Taiwan I started looking into his tours.  On his official website you can actually see the set lists for almost every show the man has ever performed.  I always dreamed of seeing him and then one day a friend I used to know through here sent me a link to the pre-sale codes for shows that were close to my area.  Of course I jumped on and bought tickets for the closest show I could get to, which was about a 3.5 hour drive from my house in Sarnia into Michigan.  When I did so, I started looking at his set lists.  They differ from show to show, but you can always find standards, or songs he has decided to begin and end shows with.  Most shows he ends with All Along the Watchtower and Like a Rolling Stone… sometimes adding in Jolene as a third, or as a replacement.  He usually starts each show on a tour with the same song as well.  When I saw him his choice as Maggie’s Farm, a great opener to get the crowd up and moving.  Lately he has been rotating between Rainy Day Women and Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat. 

Now, all Dylan fans have favorites they want to hear in concert, and although he has played almost all of his songs live, he has more than 800 recorded tracks to choose from.  So if you want to hear something like Seven Curses, you may be pretty much out of luck.  He seems to choose from a set of his top 50 songs, throwing in a few that are off the latest album and sometimes a random older track you may have forgotten.  Of course the song I have always wanted to hear is the song The Girl With the Angel Wing Tattoos palyed for me that first time… Tangled Up in Blue.    But, after looking through his set lists at the time, he hadn’t played it live in almost seven years.   I held out hope, but I knew if it had been removed, it had been removed for a reason.  I figured it must be that the Blood on the Tracks album is a very hard and personal one for Dylan, although it does hold some of his more popular tracks.

I tried all I could to figure out the chances I would hear certain songs were and although I had no real clue, I thought there would be certain songs on the set I would hear.  We drove to the show, excited to see Dylan for the first time and no matter what song he played, I just felt alive.  It was amazing to hear him no matter what he was singing.  He could have sang the telephone book and I would have been happy.  My first concert was great and had an amazing set list…

• Maggie’s Farm
• The Times They Are a Changin’
• Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
• Mr. Tambourine Man
• It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
• Just Like a Woman
• Cold Irons Bound
• Shelter From the Storm
• Masters of War
• Highway 61 Revisited
• Sugar Baby
• Summer Days
• Like a Rolling Stone
• All Along the Watchtower

Looking back at it, unless you need a certain song, this was one of the best set lists anyone could have come up with for him to play.  Classics, powerful songs and newer tracks that are just as good as the older ones.  Of course there was no Tangled Up In Blue, but it was okay.  I knew he never played it much anyway.  Then, a few weeks later, it all of a sudden showed back up in his set lists.  I went crazy when I saw that and needed to get more tickets and hope for the chance at hearing it at a different show.  I was going to buy tickets, but then I had decided to come to Taiwan and needed to save money, but then they announced a show in my home town which I had to go to, the night before I left for Taiwan.  I hoped for Tangled, but I knew he would amaze anyway.  this was the set list I got the second outing…

• Maggie’s Farm
• She Belongs to Me
• Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
• The Girl of the North Country
• It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
• Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
• Not Dark Yet
• Rollin’ and Tumblin’
• Masters of War
• Desolation Row
• Highway 61 Revisited
• Nettie Moore
• Summer Days
• Thunder on the Mountain
• Like a Rolling Stone
• All Along the Watchtower

I always look at his set lists just to see what he is playing and I always notice how often Tangled is played.  When he does overseas tours he usually sticks to the bigger songs (like Tangled and others) and leaves out the lesser known or older songs.  Back home you could get almost anything, as you can see from my two shows.  A few repeats, but who can complain about seeing Masters of War or It’s Alright, Ma twice? 

So now on Facebook, if you are a ‘fan’ of Dylan, they show you his set lists after the shows have ended.  I have certain songs I want to hear live, actually a whole bunch, but there are a few that I would love to see over the rest.  My Top Ten would be something like this…

• Tangled Up in Blue (of course)
• Simple Twist of Fate
• Desolation Row
• Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
• John Brown
• With God On Our Side
• Subterranean Homesick Blues
• Love Minus Zero/No Limit
• A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall
• Forever Young

There used to be a link to a page that showed songs Dylan had never performed live, which I found very interesting as there were some songs on there you would have figured he would have played at some point, but just never did.  I know there was a song I wanted to hear on it, but I can’t remember if it was one of my favorites or not (not from my top ten though).  If I could fill in the Top Ten to make it a full set list I would throw in a few less known, or more obscure tracks like Seven Curses, Going to Acapulco, Idiot Wind and one of my all time favorites, The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.

Why all this talk of set lists and songs?  Well, the concert last night in Charlottesville, Virginia just stunned me.  I always see maybe one or two of my top ten in there, but never many more than that… Dylan, probably knowing people want these songs, but not playing them together all the time.  But when I looked today, I saw this list…

• Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
• It Ain’t Me, Babe
• Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
• Love Sick
• The Levee’s Gonna Break
• Desolation Row
• Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
• Simple Twist Of Fate
• High Water (for Charlie Patton)
• Tangled Up In Blue
• Highway 61 Revisited
• Workingman’s Blues #2
• Thunder On The Mountain
• Ballad Of A Thin Man
• Jolene
• Like A Rolling Stone

Now, I know only four of my Top Ten are in there, but my Top Two (Tangled and Twist) are together, which rarely happens.  Plus, I loved Tweedle Dee and Thunder live the last time he played them.  Rainy Day Women, Rolling Stone, Highway 61, Memphis Blues and It’s Ain’t Me are a great set of classics put together… and I would love to hear Jolene as a closer instead of Watchtower; although it is a classic Dylan song, I still think of it as a Hendrix tune.  Ballad of a Thin Man is kind of a less remembered classic from the Highway 61 album, and Love Sick, High Water, Leeve and Working Man are great tracks off the more current (and amazing) albums Love & Theft, Time Out of Mind and Modern Times.  And then there is what has fast become one of my favorites of Dylan’s, Desolation Row.  I could listen to him play that song day and night and never get sick of the lyrics, the song or just the ideas it put in my mind as I listen to it.

So, I’m jealous.  Although I know I have a set list in my head that I would pay all the money I have and will ever have to hear him play, the set list from last night would have sent me home in a state of Shock and Awe that would be equivalent to, or even stronger than the second he stepped out on stage the first time I saw him and he began singing.  I just keep looking at that set list, and although my two shows are just as good, there is just something about a set list that has that something extra to it like this one does. 

Next time I am home for more than just a short time I am going to make sure it is during a tour that I can get to.  He was supposed to play China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea a few months back, but China denied his entry visa, so he canceled all the dates other than Japan.  I should have flown there… he had some amazing shows there too.  Damn I want to go to a Dylan concert again…

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 - Dylan Thomas

I guess it’s a good weekend to be laid up sick on the couch.  I tried to pull through the week without having to take a day off for being sick, but by Thursday night I was really feeling like death warmed over.  I went to see a doctor who proceeded to check out everything I was complaining about.  All Taiwanese doctors of course have to know English for studying medicine, but most don’t keep it up, so to find one as chatty as mine is rare.

When he checked my temperature which was a wonderful 38.6, he said ‘Oh, not good’.  When he listened to my lungs as I breathed in and out for him, he kept saying, ‘Eww, bad.  Very bad.’   And when he checked my stomach and side for pain and I told him of my stomach problems for the past week or more he said ‘Geez, not good for you‘.  So in the end he figures I have a Type B flu (is that worse than A or better?  I still get first and second degree burns mixed up), and I also have a bronchial infection in my lungs as well as a sinus blockage which is causing the headaches.  So, from the knees down, I’m okay.  But from the knees up (Farmer Brown…) I’m falling apart.

He told me to take a few days off, which being a Thursday night, basically meant Friday off plus the weekend.  Fine with me (although I hate losing a day’s pay since we are paid by hours and not salary), but I needed it.  He told me the pills would make me tired, which I already was, so I laughed and said that wouldn’t be a problem at all.  I got home about 8pm that night, took my pills, fed Mouthy and the next thing I fully remember was it was 5am on Saturday morning.  I have small flashes of calling work in the morning to tell them I wouldn’t be there, partially backed up by the fact that in the afternoon I did wake for a few minutes and I was sleeping in my computer chair instead of the bed.

I guess I fed Mouthy as there was an old can of food soaking in the sink and a new one opened in the fridge, so unless she has finally figured out how to feed herself, I did manage to take care of her needs.  Of course I was only awake enough to start watching a show on TV I borrowed from a friend, only to fall asleep again until around noon.  I’ve been dozing off every few hours, here and there, but I have managed to read about a quarter of Amityville Horror as I relax, and I went for a walk to stock up on a few things since there is a nice Typhoon coming in as I type.  I actually need to go to the supermarket if I can to get a few more things, but I’ll wait until later as it will be crowded with people both stocking up for the typhoon, and the Moon Festival on Wednesday (another day off). 

From the look of things right now, Monday may be a Typhoon day where they will close the schools and give everyone a day off.  Not bad for me to rest up with, a four-day weekend, then one day back, then a holiday, then two days before a weekend again.  I was tempted to go to the video store near my work and get some of the older DVDs they have there, but I walked to the comic shop down the road where I have free rentals and got Clash of the Titans and Repo Men to try to watch later when the pills aren’t killing me. 

  So from the satellite view, the typhoon is going to cover the whole island pretty soon, but the center will hit lower that Taipei, but we will still get washed out.  Typhoon days are fun, but annoying since almost everything is closed and if you don’t have food at home, you are kinda screwed.  I have some things here, but I will make a run to 7-11 if needed, or to the supermarket if the rain isn’t too bad later on.  Of course now I have a craving for some night market food, but there is no way they will be there and if they are, it would be stupid to drive there and get even more sick from the weather.  It’s a damn good thing I stocked up on peanut butter when it was on sale last month.    Now all I need is some bread to go with it and I am set!

In case you can’t see it, Taiwan is the little island to the left of the swirling vortex about to be covered up…

On my trip home last June I had to get my book collection back from a friend’s house and pack them up to go into a closet in my parent’s house.  I know I should have just let them free into the wild, but so many of those books hold some sort of sentimental attachment to them… and I’m a hoarder of almost anything (who knew ‘hoarder’ has an ‘a’ and not a ‘w’…), so if I have the entire John Riving collection, I’m keeping it (in hardcover to be exact)!  I brought five Rubbermaid bins with me and one big cardboard box.  I planned to fill the bins and the overflow would go into the ‘why the hell do I still have this’ box which would go to a used bookstore for credit or cash.  Of course, who would opt for cash from a used bookstore?  They usually give you twice as much in credit to get older books out of the damn shop.  This is the same thing that happened two days before leaving for Taiwan.

I went to a few of the used bookstores, but I had a bit of a problem with some of them.  The cool little white house bookshop in the Wortly Village area of London had an old lady who ran it who looked at me like I Was carrying the plague on my shoulders whenever I went in there.  She was nice to everyone that came in, even my friends, but she hated me.  I have no clue why.  I traded books to her on credit, tried to discuss books with her, asking her for specific things and recommendations and she still wanted me gone like a recurring sore on her upper lip.  So I didn’t go back to her that day.

The most popular bookshop in London is the City Lights Bookshop in the nastier part of downtown and they claim to have almost anything you can think of.  Everyone goes there more to look cool than find quality books.  I did get some cool shit from them time to time, but one day I took them a bunch of books which included two Fletch novels which I had bought newer versions of, and was told ‘No one reads this garbage.  You can keep it.‘  Garbage?  Really?  The Fletch books are my inspiration to being a writer, Gregory McDonald created some of the best dialogue fueled novels ever, and he won multiple awards for them.  So, I never went back to those book snobs who had multiple copies of On the Road on display behind the counter as if Kerouac makes you better than anyone else.

There was a cool little shop in the south end I frequented because of the young kid who worked there.  I called him Spicolli due to his exact resemblance to the Sean Penn character in Fast Times at Ridgemount High right down to the voice and attitude.  The owner was also a really nice, laid back guy who would take books he didn’t even need to give you some more credit, and then donate them to book charities.  I remember in my last few months in Canada, Spicolli was working through the Stephen King collection in order of publication so he could read and enjoy the Dark Tower series more.  He even had a big notebook where he kept track of characters, relations and connection between books (especially any reference to Flagg in The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon and other novels).  I took them a big box of books that last week and I told Spicolli that I was leaving for Taiwan.  He said if I wanted to donate anything he didn’t take to a bookfair for charity it would be cool, so I did.  I just gave him the box and looked around while he figured out a total.  He offered me about $25 cash or $50 credit.  I don’t know why, but I took the credit.  I had already chosen the books to go with me to Taiwan, but for some reason I still wanted to free some more books from the store.

I only used a little credit that day, I think only a book or two (including The Invisible Man, the first book I read in Taiwan) and figured I would give the rest to my girlfriend to use when she wanted.  Just as I was leaving Jeff (we were on a first name basis by this point in my totally warped mind) told me his boss was always looking for old VHS tapes and I laughed and told him I had a box I was going to take to the Goodwill just after leaving there.  He told me to come back later when the boss was in and he may take them off my hands.  I laughed and told him to let him know I would be back.

Later that day I returned (still with my credit slip in my pocket for about $45) with the VHS tapes I had no clue what to do with.  The owner told me he was looking more for certain movies and rare ones, but if he liked a title he would take it.  A he started digging I told him I was off to Taiwan after seeing Bob Dylan that night and if he didn’t want them to donate them to one of the charities he helped out and he immediately asked if I had any credit with them.  I showed him my almost useless slip and he crossed out the total and said, ‘I’ll just top it off to $100 if that’s okay‘.  I almost fell over.  One hundred dollars credit at a bookshop with so much to buy at such cheap prices was like giving a crack addict a pre-warmed pipe and a rock the size of Everest. 

I shopped as best as I could, thinking the whole time that my girlfriend could use it all as she read even more than I did, but it was like it was burning a hole in my pocket.  I think I got about 5-6 more books that day, a few that came with me and others that just went into my private collection.  I always felt kinda bad about getting some of those books.  It was like going into a pet shop and getting a puppy, then chaining him up outside and never playing with him.  Would they have found a better home with someone else? 

So this year upon packing up my books I made sure a few of those freed, then neglected books were taken on a journey half way around the world to be read somewhere they never should have been.  I’m tempted to save them for somewhere even more obscure than Taiwan, like in the mountains of Nepal next year, or the beaches of either Sri Lanka or the Philippines this Chinese New Year.  But I also kinda want to crack into them now and start reading as I am still on a roll with good novels (I finished The Road and actually enjoyed it’s bleak, depressing story of survivors at the end of the human race).  The two I know I bought that day were The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson and The Paper Men by William Golding which are both here and ready to go, but I also brought back other novels which sat in my collection for long periods of time waiting for their turn as well like Out of Sight and Unknown Man #89 by Elmore Leonard, One Lovely Night and Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane, Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut and The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon which has actually been waiting it’s turn to be read since I dropped my absurdist  novels class in university at the beginning of the second semester more than 10 years ago. 

Of course I also have book from here I traded for still to be read, books friends gave me to read and, coincidentally, On The Road, which my girlfriend gave me when I left inscribed with these classic words…

Oh, I did give the credit slip to the girlfriend when I left, I think she still had about $65 left on it which at this bookstore was a great haul.