Reckless Spending, or: what a great deal!

So, this may be showing too many of my cards all at once, but I spend enough time stalking books that I have a thorough knowledge of what they cost where (Amazon, Abebooks, Thriftbooks, Betterworldbooks...). Lately, Amazon has been slashing prices on expensive academic books. I suspect this is just the nature of Amazon, but if I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd argue they just slash them in my wish lists (yes, plural), because they know I can't resist books. I didn't really have the money for books this week (month) but when a $40 publication about man-eating tigers drops to $5, I knuckle under. And once one book is in the cart, I have no problem rationalizing. Maybe it needs friends? These are the titles that proved irresistible this time:


I'm headed to New York next week for a conference on online teaching and the Quality Matters standards. I know that the great city's devotees mark it as "the greatest city in the world" (cue Hamilton cast) but when I think New York, I think Lennie Briscoe - so it was only fitting that I add the stories "ripped from the headlines" to my reading list. In preparation for my journey, I'm also reading Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace's Gotham.



The purchase of this appropriately priced paperback ($5; when I was young, all paperbacks cost $5 and I've never gotten over the change) was prompted by the television show. Some of the lines were so literate, so obviously prose, that I'm guessing that they were lifted from the book -- and that was enough to make me want to read it.

People look at you strangely when you confess to an obsession with man-eating tigers, but such beasts are at the heart of my research. I discovered the Sundarbans tigers in the work of Sy Montgomery (mentioned earlier in my post about women writers and female characters. They have an intense hold (maybe it's the claws?) on my imagination and I've wanted this book since it was published. Unfortunately, it used to carry a $40 price tag... and I'm always leery of publishers like CreateSpace. When the price dropped to $5, I had to snag it.

As I burrow through the book pile, I'll let you know how my reckless spending turns out!