Had some free time today, so

[Suibon]

[center]being the bookworm that I am, and having not had the smell of new books under my nose for quite a while now (two months? take or give a half?), I decided to go to the thrift shops and the second-hand bookstores near me, and here's what I've got:[/center]

[center]Mike Cox's [i]The Confessions of Henry Lee Lucas[/i]. You know, that guy once dubbed the most notorious serial killer in America, who turned out to be its most notorious serial liar? Yeah, that guy. Unread, but my laugh lines are already starting to show.[/center]

[center]Next up is [i]The New Guide to Classical Music[/i] by Jan Swafford, who I hope is not Anthony Swofford in an ill-conceived disguise.[/center]

[center]Then, [i]Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications[/i], taking the views of a lot of Jews and [i]not one single German[/i], the only ones I'm familiar with being Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel.[/center]

[center]I also got John Sack's [i]The Franciscan Conspiracy[/i], which is apparently another novel in the vein of the [i]Da Vinci Code[/i]. Haven't read it through, but so far, so good. (One thing Mr. Russell and Mr. Raymond must understand, though: there's nothing wrong with worldliness, with being in this world, as long as you don't become corrupted yourself.)[/center]

[center]Then I bought [i]The Solitude of Self[/i][i]: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton[/i], a hagiography by that liberal feminist Vivian Gornick. Dear Jesus, people these days [i]still[/i] insist on women not wearing an apron like any good modern lady must do (besides wearing matching coiffure and pillbox hat)? Communists! Jews! Heretics! (Yes, I haven't read it.)[/center]

[center]Then, Erik Erikson's [i]Young Man Luther[/i] (previously owned by one Marie A. McHugh, of 1327 Indigo Dr., Point Pleasant, Illinois -- which means she's a Muslim raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah). Hey, did you know Martin Luther was a heretic, possessed by the Devil while being batshit crazy? (I have read the first two chapters, but hey, I'm Roman Catholic, and besides, people won't chop off my ears, right? Or persecute me for blaspheming two religions while a minister and a schoolgirl are shot for it?[/center]

[center]I then got Cardinal Newman's [i]Apologia Pro Vita Sua[/i], which means I just pissed off the more devout Anglicans here. Right? RIGHT?[/center]

[center]Then a collection of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems published by the Everyman Library, which reminds me to ask when is somebody gonna collect all of his works, be it prose or verse, and find someone willing enough publish the whole corpus. I mean, the guy was a lazy bum and an opium eater; he couldn't have done that much, now, could he?[/center]

[center]Then another collection of poems, this time by John Dryden, which once belonged to the now-defunct Rizal-sponsored Instituto de Mujeres in Malolos, Bulacan, and which apparently had survived the Japanese occupation... hmmmmmm......[/center]

[center]Then a collection of essays, [i]Death as a Way of Life[/i] by David Grossman. Expecting a true-blue white male American dream talking about young black guns with their shoot-'em-up-'n'-mow-'em-down games inside their shot-up-mowed-down ghettos, I look at the cover. I am disappoint.[/center]

[center]Then, finally, Paul Rieckhoff's [i]Chasing Ghosts -- Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective[/i], which promises to be another boring morality tale about a pissy footman too scared to go back to active duty and shooting them up colonial subjects like all good white male American soldiers do (at least way back in 1899 -- dem Greatest Generation having accomplish pfffth in comparison, but they're nothing compared to those guys in Vietnam who went home crying like six-month-old babes at the slightest whiff of Agent Orange!) bitching endlessly -- AND I MEAN ENDLESSLY! -- about dodgebushes and Iraqi insurgents and not being Anthony Swofford. I must say, soldier, you don't get awards for saying the truth.[/center]

[center]And now I'm done. I hope you read.[/center]