As I can never find a library, nevermind mind one with English books, I like many other natives of Southern America, have to buy books. To avoid expense, they tend to be found in second hand book stores.
The one thing that strikes me is the large collection of second hand magazines they have. This is especially true in Brazil. Many maintain a remarkable second hand porn collection.
More than often there is a pitiful collection of books. Here are my observations from one store across the road from my fine hotel Gloria in Blumenau:
- Inside Linda Lovelace – worn paperback and I can only assume intresting to porn fans
- KungFu p.3 – I really do not understand how people expect to learn martial arts from a barely illustrated paperback such as this
- The role of cholesterol in Atherosclerosis – a specialist book probably stolen from some specialist book shelf
- A ton of romantic, spy/crime and conspiracy novels – every from “little miss murder” to “the untold truth of the thirld world war”
- Since this is a foreign country there is a few books about “correct english” & business English and if one is lucky, one can find native notes in the English books, where the reader obviously painstakingly read with the help of a dictionary
- The man with a golden arm
- The bad blonde
- A guide to youth hostels around the world 1984/85 – How can this possibly be still useful?
- Fortune telling by playing cards
- Successful living type books. Many seem to suggest joining some Chrisitan church. Sigh…
I did actually find one classic I have not read before. A worn paperback of Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier for 1USD. Jamaica Inn itself is just a few miles from my family’s home in England.
As Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix has been out a couple of months now, I think it is safe to talk about it without spoiling the book for anyone. If you wanted to read the book, you should have done by now anyway. Briefly I thought this book was the weakest of the entire series. Here’s why:
- Piss poor use of Sirius’s Mirror
- What were the initials on the prophecy?
- Slow start…. OMG
- Percy’s character development. (Comparing start and end of book)
- Dementors in the start. Under whose control are they? Unclear timeline
- The death scene. Pretty boring?! Far too much hype I guess
- The Veil? WTF? Dead people again?
- The Brains in the tank? WTF?
- Bits where HP doesn’t tell Dumbledore, and the general frustrating theme of poor communication
- Occlumency lessons. What good were they ?
Stuff with Centaurs and Giants. Poorly fits in… For me the previous HP books where really tight books. Where everything came together well, and fit in together. This 5th book was shaky to me. Worse, there was no surprises and a fairly predictable plot… The only thing I can say positively, is that the next book can only get better! Why didn’t any prominent critic speak out about this? Or am I just a hype bitten, bitter and twisted young man? 