Shopping for books

I love shopping for books. I love walking through the "stacks" of the store, finding gems that I'd forgotten that I wanted to read or that I've never heard of. I love carrying a stack of books through the store and deciding which of the books in the pile are ones that I need.

The Dude and I went to Borders last night. He had a gift card and needed to return a DVD boxed set for store credit. So, we had an extraordinary amount of money to play with and more time than usual to browse. When left to his own devices, The Dude can spend hours in Borders' music section.

The Dude had a coupon for "buy 2 books, get the 3rd free," so I knew that I could only get 3 books. I started through the literature section and found a few and then moved, methodically, through mystery, sci fi/fantasy, and romance. When I was finished, I had 6 books. I began to think about which ones I actually wanted and which ones could wait.

I ended up with:
Size 14 isn't fat either by Meg Cabot
The mermaid chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I put back:
Forever Odd by Dean Koontz (Did you read OddThomas? It was a ridiculously good book and I had no idea that there was a sequel and now a third one called Brother Odd)
A long way down by Nick Hornby
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton (the first Anita Blake novel)

I also looked at Nora Roberts' first Eve Dallas novel (as J.D. Robb), and B is for burglar by Sue Grafton.

For some reason, I'm drawn to detective novels and mysteries these days...