Book Lust

So I'm going to a housewarming tonight at a friend of a friend's. The host has just finished renovating two apartments, so it'll be a movable feast from one to the other. He's asked that instead of wine or cheese or whatever, people bring used books, which will be used in the apartments.

I love the idea, but when I looked through my bookshelf here I couldn't find anything I was willing to part with. So a quick stroll through some of the bookstores on Corrientes and I had way too many choices. I bought a cheap collection of Argentine comics from the 50s (I have the same book in my apartment here) and a sweet little copy of the Odyssey (in Spanish, natch). Then I found this, which I just couldn't resist buying for myself, even though I'm trying not to buy unnecessary things.


For a mere $1.50, this seemed quite necessary. It's got not only a great cover, but is chock full of the most gruesome diagrams. The thought of young Argentine boys poring over the pages of this grim how-to guide makes me shiver with a ghoulish nostalgia. And of course it reminds me of when my brother Rob (then Robby) took a taxidermy class at the local Natural History Museum. The main project was stuffing a rat. As I recall, his final result was a mitigated success. He didn't add quite enough stuffing, so it was a little sunken and floppy. He also got in trouble with Mom for boiling the rat carcass in one of her good pots.