Borders

In less than a month (maybe even less than a week in places) one of the biggest bookstore chains, Borders, will be closing their doors for good all over the country. It's only fitting that my return to blogging on a somewhat regular basis has me saying something about the store, one of my favorite stores ever to exist, closing their doors for good. Borders was the book store that I would go to even if I didn't really have anything in mind to get...I just liked looking at books. I have even tried...on about 3 or 4 different occasions...to actually get a job at Borders. There were some little things. But that's not what is important in this particular blog entry. In this blog entry, I was going to list my top 5 favorite (in no particular order) purchases from Borders.

5. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon. This book came out in 2007. It came out before my bithday but I wasn't able to wait for my bithday so I went ahead and got it. I didn't finish it right away. In fact, I didn't finish it until a year ago when in July or August when I would go up to the Roving Imp for reading night but I'd get there early while the Monday night class was still winding down. This was a book about one of my fvorite artist, Warren Zevon, who passed away due to a rare form of lung cancer called Meslotheslioma (sp.) on September 7, 2003...coincidentally enough, 8 years ago of the day that I offically started this entry. This book was in with the rock an roll biographies. And when I got the book, it was when I was REALLY gettin into the music of Warren Zevon and I was currious about the person himself.

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I decided to read this book because I had at least 2 friends reccomend it...one specifically reccomended it to me. I wound up getting this book in paperback at the Borders in Shawnee in May and I finished the book in about a week. This is a young adult novel but it deals with a girl named Katniss who is sent from her district to fight in the Hunger Games...24 children ages 12 to 18 enter...only 1 child survives. This is entertainment for the people of the nation's capitol and used to keep order in the districts to prove to them that the capitol had supreme athority. Or as I liked to refer to it...Ancient Rome had the reality show of Survivor...only they were killed instead of voted off. This was also the first book I read that was getting turned into a movie since I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

3. The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. This is probably my most favorite book I ever bought randomly. It's a novel about a man who travels through time using a device that he invented to be something else. Each time he goes forward, or the time machine rather, it goes forward through an incriment of time that quadruples (or something like that) from the previous time. It was about 5 chapters before I really got into it. But then the rest of the book was a breeze and I read through it in a matter of a week all together.

2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowlings audio recording read by Jim Dale. A year ago between May and July, I read all of the Harry Potter books. But I decided to get some assistance with Order Of The Phoenix. Enter Jim Dale...who has actually won a Grammy for his audio work on the Harry Potter series. Jim Dale's reading of this book was such an expierence that when I reread the series this year, I listened to the rest of them (except for the 1st and 4th) just to hear the Jim Dale take.

1. Life'll Kill Ya by Warren Zevon. This is the only one on here that I can rightly say that it is located at the correct rank of number 1. This album was originally released in 2000. But for whatever reason, it's rare. I had to order it. It was the first Warren Zevon album I ever ordered. This is the CD that is on my list of albums that I want to take with me if I ever get stranded on a desserted island with a CD player. This album includes "I Was In The House When The House Burned Down," "For My Next Trick, I Need A Volunteere," a cover to Steve Winwood's "Back In The Highlife," and a song I can't say on a family friendly blog but censored as "My $iht's F**ked Up." And one of my all time favorite songs, "Don't Let Us Get Sick." You can even find my overview of it by clicking here.

Well, I think that list came full circle. I started with a book about Warren Zevon and ended with one of Warren Zevon's albums. Yes, this is my list.

Good bye Borders. I will miss you.