Monday, June 23, 2008

You Load 16 Books & What Did You Get?

CanadaBoy is leaving!

Moving!
Relocating!
Abandoning....no, that last one's a little bit strong. Anyway, you get the idea. He's outta here when his contract finishes next month.

Yesterday we were sitting in his office eating chicken. It was delicious. He ordered in two kinds -- the regular fried chicken and the one with the spicy sauce with sesame seeds over that, and this time, they didn't skimp on the sesame seeds. I was trying to enjoy the food and conversation, but I got to thinking that there wouldn't be many more lunches like this. Then I tried to remind myself that people come and go over here; this is the way of the expat. Then I wasn't hungry.

I hadn't quite worked up to full-scale brooding, but my conversational skills were waning, and even on the verge of sucking. CanadaBoy must have noticed, so he told me that I could have first crack at the books stored in his cabinet. Here's what I found and took back to my office:

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery

The Little Prince --in English and Korean. [Obviously, I'm up to something here.]

Kim - Rudyard Kipling [I've never read Kipling. I like his name, though. Both of 'em.]

Driving Over Lemons - Chris Stewart [The former drummer for Genesis moves to Spain and runs a peasant farm. I loves me some 'life abroad' stories.]

Macbeth - William Shakespeare [I've never read this. My son loves it.]

The American - Henry James [My first outing with James wasn't so fun. I want to like him. I really DO!]

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo [Damn, C'est huge.]

Russia Under The Czars - Henry Moscow [Published in 1962. YA history. Ex-library book.]

My Own Two Feet - Beverly Cleary [Memoir.]

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - Lester David [It looks like trashy reading, but my grandmother, mother and aunt were crazy about the Kennedys, so I grew up reading stuff like this.]

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain [I feel about Mark Twain the way Mr. Bybee feels about Jesse James and all those Civil War heroes.]

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce [I've never read Joyce, except for the Molly Bloom chapter in Ulysses. I've got a block about him.]

Espedair Street - Iain Banks [I don't know this author, but how could I not be drawn to someone with so many vowels in his first name?]

The Interpretation Of Dreams - Sigmund Freud [Hmmm...]

Beyond The Horizon - Eugene O'Neill [1920 play. Won the Pulitzer Prize.]

The Last Gentleman - Walker Percy [I haven't read anything by this author...wasn't he buddies with Flannery O'Connor?]

This is a pretty good haul. Rifling through CanadaBoy's book cupboard was a nice distraction, but I can't really say that I feel better.




8 comments:

jenclair said...

What a haul! Not adequate compensation for your loss, but maybe some future consolation.

I love Walker Percy! Hope you do, too!

Eva said...

I'm sorry. :( You could always kidnap him, hehe!

Those books look like a lot of fun: Kim is one of those books that it took me about fifty pages to get into, but then it was good. I'm loving Les Mis (thought I've been reading it for months now! Every time I get to the end of a section, I think "I'll type up my notes before I go on" and then it takes me a ridiculously long time to type up my notes). And other than The Little Prince, I haven't read any of the others.

Jeane said...

Ooh, good books all!

Anonymous said...

Some great stuff there. bUT I'm sad for you that a friend is moving away...

SFP said...

Walker Percy est tres cool.

LisaMM said...

You scored!! Too bad about your friend, though.

Bookfool said...

I'm sorry he's leaving, but I'm glad you got a pile of books in the process.

I hope a new and lovely ex-pat comes over to make friends with you, soon.

Susan said...

Nice haul, but so sorry you are loosing your buddy. ouch. No matter what they say, when you are in a foreign country, someone who speaks your language AND reads books AND you can talk to, is like a gift from heaven. I hope you find another one soon! or else you'll have to blog more and we'll answer you!!! can't send any fried chicken though, it'll smell when it gets there!