我買了兩本書/Moby Dick

Between work and home I spend too much time in front of the computer. Sometimes I don't even know what it is I'm trying to find. I'm just looking for any random thing to keep me occupied, and it's one of those habits that I would like to remedy. Because of this, I have no reservations about being a smart phone hold out, as the last thing I need is another reason to stare at a screen.

As a solution, I decided to brave the rainy weather and go to a book store yesterday to find something good to read. My initial goal was tracking down A Dance with Dragons (update: found it, read it, it was awesome. Now I have to wait who knows how long for the next one), book five in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I wanted to find it used and so my first stop was Whose Books near the 公館 MRT station. A couple different blogs recommended this store as having the best used English book section in Taipei. Turns out it wasn't big enough to fill half an aisle at Powell's Books.

I did not find my intended purchase.

My next best chance was the much larger book store across the street. As far as finding my initial book choice it was a bust, but they did have a decent selection of HarperCollins classics on the cheap. After perusing my options I decided upon Moby Dick and Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, both of which I've never read. For some reason the clerk decided to give me a discount even though I said I wasn't a student (it's near 台灣大學, so students get a discount), and so I walked away with my two new books for $8. Sweet.

I was also hungry and really wanted a burger, so with my purchases in hand I walked off in pursuit of California Grill on 永康街 (a touristy street with abundant restaurants, tea shops, and other shopping opportunities), a little burger place that Andrea and I went to a couple times previously. I thought I knew where it was and after a futile hour or so of trying to track it down, went into a random place that had what looked like Spanish and African cuisine inspired sandwiches. I placed my order and started reading Moby Dick. By the second page I was already hooked, but a passage on page four really struck me with how little things have changed within the human condition since the book was published in 1851:

"Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then. however the old sea-captains may order me about--however they thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content."

Damn, if that isn't powerful. I made a good choice.