Friday Finds

So it was an interesting week in book-buying for me. First up is Leila Aboulela's The Translator, a love story between a Sudanese Muslim woman and a Scottish, secular Islamic scholar; I'm about three chapters in and enjoying it very much. I'm reading it for my Muslim/Christian/Jewish book club and it's a nice change of pace from a reading schedule that is otherwise often heavy with theology, which I sometimes find dull. I much prefer learning about people and their lives rather than reading about dogma. For me learning about religion boils down to learning about how people live and why, and learning about what they think of what they do. And I think I just prefer novels in any case.

The second thing I got this week is an out-of-print graphic novel called It Disappears, by Nate Powell. I tried to get it directly from the publisher, Soft Skull Press, but although they were out I managed to snag a copy from Amazon.

Finally, last but by no means least, I picked up Familiar Strangers, an anthology of new and collected poetry by Irish poet Brendan Kennelly. My friend and I went to Grolier Books this afternoon, a poetry-only bookshop in Harvard Square, and I just had to have it. I lived in Dublin for a few months after college and met Mr. Kennelly a few times in the restaurant where I worked as a waitress; he made an odd impression but I got a copy of his then-just-published Poetry My Arse and quickly became a big fan. I am very excited to start reading this volume and I will have to remember to return to Grolier soon. I actually hadn't been in to the shop in over ten years!