Bookweek In Ten Short Chapters

I'll bet you thought with these last few posts that I'm all about reviews. I'll bet you also thought that I was all about reading. Well, I am, but I've also been bookSocial and bookShopping this past week. Here's my bookStory:

1. My new(est) book group met to discuss Laughter In The Dark last Wednesday evening. We had a great time talking about the novel and trying to figure out who should be cast in a movie version while munching on pizza and chicken and washing it all down with soda and beer. Our next book is the 1889 humor classic Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. I'm coveting the audiobook version, read by *sigh* Hugh Laurie.

2. This new book group has a name now. We are THE CRACKED SPINZ. That's pronounced "spines", of course.

3. I had to visit my bank in Gumi on Friday, so I made lunch plans with my first bookworm buddy in Korea, Pablo. Looking back, I think that I'm more interested in nonfiction now because of him. Pablo just finished a book about the immigrant experience in the UK called Dark Heart by Nick Davies. He described it at great length, and I added it to my wishlist. Pablo thinks that the US immigrant experience is probably parallel to what's described in Dark Heart.

4. On Saturday, I went to Seoul to meet some of my non-bookish friends and chow down at TomaTillo's, a new Mexican restaurant I'd heard so much about. Happily, the restaurant is at Jonggak, and one of the Bandi & Luni bookstores is right there in the subway. Exit 2. It's imprinted in letters of fire on my...well, anyway...I bought a third copy of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (one was loaned out in 2005 and never came back and the other was for CanadaBoy's birthday). I also decided to buy Haruki Murakami's memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I'm not exactly a Murakami fan, but I couldn't resist that play on Raymond Carver. Just when I was about to leave, I spotted -- BIG BOOK SCORE!-- The Egg And I by Betty MacDonald. I've been hoping that this book would pop up in Korea. I also have The Plague And I and Onions In The Stew and Anybody Can Do Anything on my wishlist. By abebooks website I sat down and wept.

5. My friends, burritos and lime margaritas were all waiting for me right outside exit 6 of the Jonggak subway. Approaching the steps, I ran smack-dab into ANOTHER bookstore! Who knew? I made a quick survey of the store, but didn't buy anything. I would've stayed longer, but I was thirsty.

6. Flash-forward 5 hours. My friends and I were still at TomaTillo's. We'd had our fill of Mexican food and drink. Now we wanted dessert. I craved a big piece of chocolate cake like nobody's business, but suddenly, something else was on my mind. I had to visit the Kyobo bookstore over by the U.S. embassy, which was about 10 minutes from where I was sitting. I had to get there before it closed, because I had an overwhelming feeling -- it was almost like panic -- that a copy of Olive Kitteridge was there, waiting for me. My non-bookish friends had roused themselves enough to have a conversation about favorite childhood books (Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume, C.S. Lewis), but I regretfully said goodbye and hurried off down the street.

7. BINGO! BOOK SCORE! Olive Effing Kitteridge! Damn, it was expensive -- 26,000W for a trade paperback. I couldn't be deterred. It's a Pulitzer fiction winner. After that, I was all done in. I had to find a pillow.

8. Sunday. Itaewon. Talya's book group was meeting at 2 pm to discuss My Place by Sally Morgan. Just enough time for lunch and a visit to What The Book? where I found what I was after: The Log From The Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck for the Eco challenge and Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland so that I might finish the Canadian challenge before the Canada Day deadline. I met up with Val who was trading in a bunch of paperbacks. She got 27,000W in credit. That's something that never happens to me.

9. Talya's book group AKA "Seoul Women's Book Club". More chocolate cake. I didn't finish My Place, but neither did most of the group. I'm going to, though. The next book is A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I read for my original book group, BOOKLEAVES.

10. Took the subway home. I got a seat and eagerly cracked open Olive Kitteridge. A few chapters later, I noticed that none of the stations we were going through sounded familiar. WTF? I missed my transfer at Guro and ended up somewhere near Incheon, which is way way west of where I live. Backtracking put me out of a reading mood, but not for long. Shortly after I left Guro for the second time, I was back in the biblio saddle again. That's me, yodeling.