there aren't very many used bookstores in anymore because people read less and are switching to ebooks, but there is one good one nearby that seems to be doing ok...the store is called book off, and i check their stock once every few weeks...it is a japanese chain, but they have a large section of used books in english that are in very good condition...from time to time they will have newly released books for cheap...last weekend i picked up these three
reamde and freedom were hard covers, but they were only 5 bucks...too cheap to pass up so i got them...i would probably have to wait at least a year after the paperbacks are released to be able to find them used...brief interviews with hideous men was a good find too since used dfw books are hard to come by
i haven't read any of neal stephenson's books, but i keep picking them up when i find them at a good price...i'll probably start with cryptonomicon...i don't remember if i wrote this in my blog about comic con, but there was an exhibitor who was selling a rare pre-published signed print of snow crash for about 2000 bucks...his books are supposed to be pretty good, so i'll have to see if they live up to the hype
i remember corrections getting better as i read it, so i got freedom...also, franzen and dfw were friends, and i want to see how dfw's death may have influenced this book
my review of corrections from goodreads...
this book was difficult to like...the family was so frustratingly dysfunctional and the three spoiled yuppie children were so annoying in the beginning that it was hard to look past them and enjoy the better aspects of the book...namely, the satiric observations about the family in parallel to the american economy...the change from an industrial/manufacturing economy to a service/finance/internet economy as reflected in the professions of the father compared to his children...the economic boom of the 90s and the shift in thought from working hard and paying your dues to obtaining success by finding the next hot internet stock to become overnight paper millionaires (aflred, the father, versus the oldest son, gary)...the writing is very good, but at times a little too slick...there were also some parts that didn't seem to fit(for example, turd hallucinations)...the story is intricately connected, and a careful read would show that many situations, objects, and people are related in some way...the reader might gain a little more satisfaction from the book if the connections can be made...there isn't much of a plot beyond trying to get the family together for one last christmas, but a plot isn't necessary for this type of book...also, by the end, two of the three children were less annoying as they matured and made their "corrections"...ultimately, i think this is a book worth reading
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