reading matter - a ramble

Payday today, so i felt justified in a small scale shopping spree at Waterstones this evening. This particular object d'art is the latest McSweeney's - a journal that deals in experimental presentation of words. This one is in three sections, each one snapped to a beautiful leather case magnetically. And the writing is really interesting too - a set of writers get to work from Scott Fitzgerald's unwritten ideas, a volume of work from the Oulipo group, who set themselves strange and ridiculous constraints...

I also bought Vikram Chandra's sprawling tale of modern Mumbai, Sacred Games, which, even from it's first page, bursts with life. Trouble is, he has to sustain it over 900 more pages. Bit of bedtime reading there then. Unlike Dublin Shooter, I don't mind if my books end up battered and bruised. i took six years over reading 'A Suitable Boy' - which is even longer than this and one of the most wonderful novels I've ever read - and by the end, the old paperback was torn, the spine was cracked, the pages were yellow. Much as I enjoy lending or giving my books away, and even the occasional bookcrossing, that particular book feels like an old companion, and it's not going anywhere. Apologies for the ramble :)