Books
It's been a few months since I last read a decent book. We went down to Sol this evening to the bookstores (the only thing open on Sundays here in Spain) but the main one, Casa Del Libro was closed for renovation (it is August!) so instead we shuffled over to FNAC - a sort of French Borders with CDs, DVDs and books - which isn't as good for books, but we were sort of jonesing I think so we bought several anyways. I was hoping to also find the Lord of the Rings on DVD, but it's obviously not here in Spain yet. (Probably a delay for the voice translation stuff...)
Ana bought several books, including "Chicken Soup for the Soul for Women" and John Grisham's "A Painted House" both in Spanish of course. And I bought Douglas Coupland's new book "All Families are Psychotic" in English and Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" in Spanish ("�rase Una Vez Un Padre"). Hornby wrote "High Fidelity" which I read before and liked despite it's British leanings. The movie, in my opinion, was much better for me having moved the story to the U.S. ;-)
I purposefully chose the Spanish version of the Hornby novel because I knew I liked the author, but need to practice my Spanish. I'm slowly working my way up to non-translated Spanish books. First it was little Spanish training booklets, then Harry Potter (which I had read in English immediately before), then it was other books I had read some time before in English (Isaac Asimov's Foundation) and now a book I haven't read before, but by an English-language author. Eventually I'll try to tackle someone like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende... someone who writes in Spanish. We'll see how this one goes. I may read Coupland's book first just to warm up. ;-)
It's not really Summer without a few good books under your belt now is it?
-Russ
P.S. Later... Victor just told me that the Lord of the Rings is coming out on August 28th! Cool beans!