It’s Furious Balancing

But first, the answer to yesterday’s query: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. “Inspection of Concrete, or, Barbaric, Mystical, Bored” is a chapter title and references the graffiti scrawled by a German soldier in one of the (pre-invasion) Normandy bunkers.¹

Today’s pop quiz is also book related, but it’s much easier since it’s multiple choice.

This morning, while browsing the monthly catalog from Quality Paperback Book Club, I found a book that caught my eye, made my heart beat faster, and which I just had to have.  Which was it?

(a) The brand-spanking-new translation of War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy). “Early release paperback,” granted the bottom one-sixth of a page on page 10 of the catalog; or

(b) The Nymphos of Rocky Flats (Mario Acevedo), the first book in a new mystery series featuring Private Investigator Felix Gomez, who came back from his military stint in Operation Iraqi Freedom as a vampire. Full-page color insert and featured with its companion volumes, X-Rated Bloodsuckers and The Undead Kama Sutra.

Words fail me.

1. I used The Tin Drum as the book for my English oral comps my senior year in college, all the way back in 1987. Neither Professor Hilberry or Professor Stavig had read it, so I was basically able to bullshit dissemble my way through our discussion. Add this talent to the list of “What the Study of Literature Has Done for Me.” [↩]

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