why I avoid bookstores

Because I always end up buying more than I need. It’s not a rare vice, of course.

KIRAN DESAI is visiting our university next week, and having never read either of her novels, I decided to do some homework prior to the visit. Obviously, it will be a lot more rewarding to hear Desai speak if I’ve actually read some of her stuff by then.

I didn’t find her Man Booker Prize winner (everyone in Cairo probably had the same idea I did), but did find her debut novel.

But I also found two other “must buy” books… One was a nice book of Giotto paintings, which struck a chord because I’ll be lecturing on Giotto this Thursday in class.

The other, which sent chills down my spine as soon as I saw it, was Cornelius Agrippa’s Natural Magic. Written in the early 1500’s, it’s just what it sounds like. Here’s the first random sample I turn to:

“They say, also, that a stone that is bit with a mad dog hath power to cause discord, if it be put in drink, and that he shall not be barked at that puts the tongue of a dog in his shoe under his great toe, especially if the herb of the same name, viz., hound’s-tongue, be joined with it.”

Sure, I can easily read 300 pages of this!