Booking

My two best friends and I share a love for books that to some degree is mildly unhealthy. Not that we care. Since we recently aquired a Barnes and Noble that was not outside of state lines, we celebrate by visiting it as often as possible. It's about an hour's drive from where we live, but since the bookstores nearest us do not provide suitable literary stimulation, we're all thrilled to take the ride.

Today being no exception since my two best friends (who, note, happen to be librarians, one of whom has a Masters in English and Education and the other about to finish up her Masters of English) had the day off due to holiday and I simply because I don't work on Mondays for school (which is no longer the case as of this semester but I'm not going to tell them that).

We spent our entire trip in the BN, even though we were in a pretty large mall with lots of other places to go. This is the level of nerd we are. And proud, no less.

I bought a new book called 'The Girl Who Played Go' by Shan Sa. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes period works and/or novels based in Asia. It is set in 1930s Japan, China, and Manchuria (depending) and is actually a romance. Although I have to note my dismay in discovering, after sitting to read it for two hours this afternoon, that I had already gotten to the halfway mark. Sa's book 'Empress' took much longer and I find a lower reading level to be to blame, although 'Go' is by far no less engaging. In fact I'm actually finding myself enjoying it more. Her characters have an interesting amount of depth despite the selfish nature of her female leads. Of the two out of three of her books I have read, her female leads tend to be independent on the verge of being snooty and while I praise, celebrate, and practice the independent woman lifestyle, even I can't deny the snoot attitudes.

While it may sound like I'm trying to persuade one away from the book, my intent is actually the complete opposite. This book is engaging, informative (complete with footnotes explaining any reference made to period Asia), and well translated (the original version is in French, according to my inside cover) and written. I love books set in other cultures, especially Asia, and have read quite a few of them. This one is quickly working its way up the ranks of my favorite books in the genre and I really hope to see more from Shan Sa in the future.