The Newly-Hoards (Or Why Store Closing Sales Are Awesome)

When I found out that the Borders store near my place still has its store closing sale going, I pushed myself to stay up a few more hours after a tedious 8-hour-graveyard shift just so I could grab some loot. Even though most of the good stuff were already sold, I still left the building with a huge smile on my face as I carried 2 bags of wonderful goodies that no clothes or pair of shoes could, at the time, compete with.

First three books on the list: Kaito’s Cloth, Art and Max, and Pigs Make Me Sneeze! I actually bought Kaito’s Cloth from Blockbuster when I checked their movie deals. Kaito’s Cloth by Glenda Millard is a wonderful tale of little Kaito who loved her butterflies so much that she found a way to make their gift of flight last forever. In Art and Max, another mixed media picture book presentation by David Wiesner, two friends explore the wonder of art and discover what creativity truly means. Because I enjoyed Mo Willems‘ Leonardo the Terrible Monster, I decided to grab another adorable picture book of his called Pigs Make Me Sneeze! This book is part of the Elephant and Piggie collection (which I plan to collect, or at least buy most haha). It follows the simple plot of an elephant who believes that he is allergic to his best friend. All books were half off the original sale price.

Second set of three: A Visitor for Bear, Dream, and Sandman: The Dream Hunters. A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker garnered the E.B. White Read Aloud Award and is a heartwarming tale of an unlikely friendship that formed between a grumpy bear and a mouse as cute as can be. Dream by Susan V. Bosak is an inspirational picture book about one’s journey in life filled with hopes and dreams. It is a “one-of-a-kind collaboration of 15 internationally acclaimed artists” including James Benett, Barbara Reid, and Shaun Tan. It is perfect for dreamers like you and me. And then there was Neil Gaiman’s The Dream Hunters, a spinoff of his Sandman series. Set in old Japan, and the story brought to life by artist P. Craig Russell, it tells how the King of Dreams intervened on behalf of a forbidden love between a wily fox and a humble young monk.

Third set of three: Bud, Not Buddy, The Penderwicks, and Here, There Be Dragons. Christopher Paul Curtis, author of the Newbery Honor book The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, presents another exceptional tale in Bud, Not Buddy, recipient of the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award. Winner of the National Book Award for young people’s literature, The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall is “a summer tale of four sisters, two rabbits, and a very interesting boy.” Sounds interesting enough to me already! I came upon James A. Owen’s Here, There Be Dragons by accident. As I was about to leave the store, I found this sitting on the shelf by itself. In this first book of The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica (ah yes, another series to look forward to), three strangers are brought together by “an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale” and the unusual murder of the atlas caretaker.

From here onward, books are catered to the older and more mature readers. First two on the list are memoirs: Parched and The Mercy Papers, both on sale for 60% off the bargain price! So, yes, I only paid $1.60 each. Goooood price. Heather King’s Parched is about “one woman’s journey to the bottom of the bottle—and back.” It is a “tragicomic memoir about alcoholism as spiritual thirst.” In The Mercy Papers by Robin Romm, she chronicles her mother’s last three weeks as an “obstinate hospice nurse” tries to make the transition easier for both mother and daughter. Having both psychology and nursing backgrounds, I could not help but grab these books from the shelves.

This last set of books is a collection of stories, with the exception of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. A NY Times Bestseller that was turned into a film, this book reminds me of the movie Lost in Translation. It is an interesting tale of a young man searching for his father amidst language barriers and “sublimely butchered English.” Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro is a collection of five stories that portray music as an essential part of life and how it “delivers [the characters] to an epiphany.” In Miranda July’s No one belongs here more than you, readers engage in a “startling, sexy, and tender collection” of stories that “reveal her characters’ idiosyncrasies and the odd logic and longing that govern their lives.” Finally, John Barlow’s Eating Mammals follows the tradition of T.C. Boyle, Steven Millhauser, and Michael Faber as three mythical tales from Victorian England are brought to life—”with a penchant for the macabre worthy of Irvine Welsh.”

And so I end my book chronicle of the day. As I look at my current shelf, my mind is starting to feel restless because I am already thinking of new sets of books to buy. Truly, Christmas is a good excuse to splurge… more. =)

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