vonnegution

After work today, I went to Borders and picked up three new books that I am very excited to read (or, re-read). They are, in no particular order:

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

New Universal (volume 1): Everything Went White by Warren Ellis

and

Where The Wild Things Are by, and you should know this, Maurice Sendak

I've been wanting to read The Savage Detectives since it came out a year or so ago, but have been putting it off for fear that either a) I wouldn't get it, or b) it wouldn't be as good as everyone says it is. But now that Bolano's new book 2666 has been getting raves, as well, so much so that he's being called a genius, I felt I had no longer had the choice to blatantly ignore his work. Plus, he just died and I regret not checking it out before that.

I hadn't heard of New Universal before I went into the store tonight. But I saw the name Warren Ellis and was immediately intrigued by the cover (which reveals that the artist shamelessly borrowed the visages of a few well-known actors). I read the back cover description and was immediately hooked. This is precisely why I don't do ALL my shopping off of Amazon. If I did, I'd miss out on new finds such as this.

I picked up Wild Things because it's been years (like, probably 20) since I read it and the little bit of footage from Spike Jonze's adaptation has me more excited for any movie due to come out in the (hopefully, very near) future than anything since, well, The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen the test footage, check it out:



So, I'm far more ready for my forthcoming three-day weekend than I was this morning. The only question is, where do I start?