Do You Take Plastic?

"If it's over $20..."

It was.

More on The Book Nook a little later.

Someone Stop Me

Before I buy again...

I only half needed to go to the grocery store, which is across the parking lot from The Purple Cat used book store. The lure is usually irresistible, but I rarely get there before the 5:00 pm closing time.  I alway enter looking only for a paperback copy of The Keep, by F. Paul Wilson.  I always leave without it and, on average, three to five other volumes I didn't know I needed until I saw them.  This time the haul was as follows:

Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941-1945, by Von Hardesty

Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, by Clay Blair, Jr. [UPDATE: Oops, only the 2nd of two volumes...]

The Outline of History, Volume I, by H.G. Wells, which I already had a copy of.

The Outline of History, Volume II, by H.G. Wells, which I did not. Now I own matched set, and a spare copy of Volume I.

Stranger Things

Does a strange job of plucking all the strings...

I've heard that Netflix analyzes its massive customer usage database to determine what its viewers will pay to see.  The idea makes an interesting sort of sense in a business in the age of big data sort of way, but I've never felt it being done to me. Until now...

Stranger Things, starring Winona Ryder, offers up elements, touches, and tropes from a wide array of 1970-90s SciFi, Romcoms, Horror, and Coming of Age movies.  It riffs on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (frazzled mom desperately seeking her missing son, check!), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Mia Sara look-alike, check!), E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Drew Barrymore knock-off, blonde pigtails and all, check!), any Molly Ringwald movie (gangly redhead with big glasses, check!), Firestarter (psychokinetic waif preyed upon by nameless government agency, check!), Altered States (under water sensory deprivation tank, check!), Poltergeist (Craig T. Nelson stand-in, check!), The Lost Boys (improbably capable pubescent nerds to the rescue, check!), Alien (Giger-esque monster life cycle, check!), The Fury (death by SPOILER, check!), etc., etc...

The "old" cars, dated fashions, and pre-internet technology evokes a strange nostalgia (most of the 80s really were not the good old days).  The storyline is compelling so far.  I'm going to continue binging.  I hope they have sussed out the sort of ending I'll enjoy.

[UPDATE: Yup, they did good. Fun stuff.]

[UPDATE: Sharon Hill @IDoubtIt at Twitter added: "Also X-Files derived, with some Stand By Me." Good points.]

[UPDATE: Others have suggested references to The Goonies, but I'm not quite feeling it...]

Did I Mention My Eclectic Tastes?

I keep adding to the shelf books I won't have time to read...

Stopped to visit the Book Haven in Prescott Valley, AZ, after a visit to the doctor's office.

The Living Thoughts of Confucius, by Alfred Doeblin

Utopia, by Sir Thomas More

Stalkers and Shooters: A History of Snipers, by Kevin Dockery

Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Why We Are Who We Are, by Frans De Waal

I am so glad I'm not drawn to bars the way I am to used book stores.

And...

Some more books...

2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson, one of my favorite SF authors.

The New AR-15 Complete Owner's Guide, by Walt Kuleck (with Greg King) because the rifle after next will be an AR-15.

Time to declare a book buying hiatus; the bills for the remodeled deck and the new roof are looming.