February 24 - Russell Books

Now, it looks like I spent some cash today at Russell Books, but in fact it's a swap, because really I just used up the remainder of my outstanding credit when I handed over some books that I wasn't going to miss having around. (This raises, obviously, some questions about whether I'd genuinely miss any of the thousands that, or possibly who, survived the recent purge, but it's best if I just don't think about that. New to the menagerie, then:

• Chris Bruce et al., Myth of the West ($12.99, a dandy book of essays and images from a major 1990 show by the U of Washington's Henry Art Gallery)
• Harold Coward, ed., Traditional and Modern Approaches to the Environment on the Pacific Rim: Tensions and Values ($5.99 for frankly a terrific volume of essays, by writers like Stephen Owen, Rosemary Radford Reuther, and Nancy Turner)
• Larissa Lai, Salt Fish Girl ($9.99 for what I hear's a brilliant pre-modern AND post-apocalyptic novel, blending two different time periods: "a remarkable novel about gender, love, honour, intrigue, and fighting against the dark forces of biotechnology," says the blurb)
• John McPhee, Basin and Range ($7.99: apparently I'm gradually collecting McPhee books, and I sure did enjoy his The Pine Barrens, even though I seem unaccountably NOT to have posted any notes on it)
• Gary Paul Nabhan, The Desert Smells Like Rain: A Naturalist in Papago Indian Country ($4.99, I have to say for no clear reason, given the utterly fascinating subject and approach, though admittedly I'm a giant nerd for this sort of thing), and
• Heather Rogers, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage ($9.99 for the book, not the movie, and I'm already having trouble not reading it rather than marking papers the way I should).