...is that sometimes they buy me books. Okay, not only for me, I do have to give them back, but when a nice new book arrives with my name on the routing slip, that's kinda what it feels like. The book buying system for our library board is actually so damn slow and cumbersome (book buying by committee!) that I tend to only request books I don't mind waiting for. If I really want it, I'll just buy it from Amazon.
Anyway, last week I got David Belbin's THE EBAY BOOK (nothing special, didn't teach me anything I haven't already learnt from a few years eBaying). Today I got Chuck Palahniuk's newie, a collection of jounalism called NONFICTION. I say newie, I think I originally requested it in August (told you they're slow). I've only thumbed through it, but so far, so good. Palahniuk writes well in the short form anyway, as any reader of his Dahlesque talltale GUTS will tell you. I was unimpressed by Palahniuk's last couple of novels, which seemed to me to be comparitively* unsuccessful dips into genre writing, so hopefully taking another break from fiction will have recharged the great man's batteries.
*A good writer's lesser works are still always worth reading, if only for a point of comparison.