What One Hundred Pennies Will Buy

I highly recommend 

Drewelow's House of Books

2233 Charles St. 

Rockford, IL 61104

815-226-2233

Also see my Buttery Soft Math Book

Light morning snacks

I bought Jack a book called Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli, because he likes to eat crayons, paper and loose change.  The book is supposed to teach him the difference between yummy and yucky things.  "Blueberries are yummy.  Blue Crayons are yucky."  He thought the book was yummy. Thanks Leslie.

Bibliophilia

I stood at Goodwill among the stacks of used books scanning each spine for something interesting when I happened upon a pink book stuck spine inward. I grabbed and turned it about before putting it back in the stacks and finding a little brown wrapped text book next to it.

The old brown wrapper is oily and smooth from being used and covers a beautiful red text book called "Mathematical Tables - From Handbook of Chemistry and Physics Seventh Edition" compiled by Charles D. Hodgman, M.S., Associate Professor of Physics at Case School of Applied Science from Chemical Rubber Publishing Co. 2310 Superior Ave. N.E., Cleveland, Ohio. 1941

It's a relic befitting of a shelf with a slide rule and a Kodak Duaflex IV twin lens camera also perched on it. It's a book I'll not take the time to read, understand or use, but a book I instantly fell in love with. On the inside cover Eugene Anthony Tiernan, who later co-authored "New Technology in Oilseed Proteins," carefully wrote the log shortcuts he wanted to easily access while he was in Iowa State College's Chem E. Class. It was a time when instead of buying a cell phone case, one bought a brown book cover to wrap a book in and had phone number like "2183-J" that an operator had to connect you to.

On the inside of the buttery little book are pages and pages filled with patterns of numbers in tables carefully typeset in something like a Bookman font. The pages are thin, smooth and abundant. The whole book lightweight and satisfyingly convenient in size. It made utterly no sense for me to buy it other than I wanted it. I paid $1.50 and with the original selling price at 55¢, if my math is right, I figured it to be a terrific investment already appreciating by almost 300%.

Savory with a Dash of Sour and a Pinch of Salt.

I'm finally reading "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and though I'd like to devour it, I've been savoring it reading one essay a day. I've decided David Sedaris is my generation's Woody Allen; subversive, snarky, appealing in a very odd way and brilliantly funny. I realized today I could munch up the rest of the book this afternoon and promptly run out to buy the next three, finishing "When You're Engulfed in Flames" sometime this weekend, but I've been on such a good book fast that I'd hate to purge on David Sedaris only to end up barfing up his stories all scrambled together in a heap of sarcasm. So I am sticking with the original plan, one essay a day fortified with some healthy NYT, and National Geographic to round it out. Next up a historical fiction novel and then some poetry a pal sent me. Perhaps my reading list will start to tatse good again.

The Virgin Blue

I started a wonderful new book the other night and plowed through the first third of it before I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. The Virgin Blue was written by the same author who penned (typed? Do people still pen anything?) The Girl with Pearl Earrings. The problem is every other chapter is great. Those are the chapters that take place during the 30 years war and the chapters I can’t wait to get past altogether are the ones that take place in the modern day French countryside. I’ll probably be done by the end of the weekend; I’ll let you know if the weaker chapters get any better.