Out of Cheese

Thanks to the MacHack schedule I’m apparently the only person in the Northern Hemisphere who hasn’t purchased a copy of the new Harry Potter book yet. In an attempt to correct that, I wandered over to Barnes & Noble after work today.

I should have known better. It’s completely impossible for me to go book shopping and walk out of the store without buying anything…or even worse, without buying a lot of things. In this case, they were unfortunately out of copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but I couldn’t let a little thing like that stop me. Oh, no. That would be too easy.

Half an hour later I’d plunked down $70 or so for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, Steven Brust’s Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, and Michael Lewis’ Moneyball.

Undaunted by the large collection of unexpected purchases, I stopped at yet another Barnes & Noble on the way home from the first one. They didn’t have the Harry Potter book there either, but they did have a bunch of copies of the hardcover edition of Terry Brooks’ The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Ilse Witch — the version with the nifty translucent cover — for $7. I haven’t read a Shannara story in years, but I almost bought it before somehow managing to drag myself out of the store without spending any more money. Phew.