I spent the last few days in Portland, Oregon, and you know there’s no way I can be in Portland and not stop at Powell’s. The Kindle simply can’t compete with an indie book store the size of a city block, and who doesn’t love the smell of books?
Here’s what I picked up:
I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
I was happy to see that they had a small section reserved for banned books, in celebration of Banned Books Week. Four out of my five purchases came from this section. The other (I Am Not A Serial Killer) is a debut novel I found in the “serial killer” section.
In related news, those two textbooks I ordered were waiting for me when I got home. Of course the first thing I did was excitedly flip through one of them… only to see an actual full-color crime-scene photo complete with dead body and lots of blood. I wasn’t prepared – I still had my shoes on and my purse over my shoulder. It’s one thing to write about this stuff, and a whole other thing to actually see real-life murder. The victim – well, I won’t describe it, but let me just say she died in a horrible, horrible way at the hands of someone who wanted to make damn sure she suffered. It just confirms what I’ve always suspected: no story we fiction writers invent could ever be more gruesome than real life.
And on that note, Happy Monday. What’s everybody up to this week? Be sure to stop by Killer Chicks to see what we’ve got going on, and to share your weekly goals.