Virtually everything that I order on-line is used, though once in a while I order a dress shirt or even a pair of slacks, as essentially all of the mid-range clothing stores have closed down in Toronto (and America more generally). So I probably will not be directly impacted by tariffs in that sense, though of course probably close to half of the produce we buy comes from the States, so our grocery bill will definitely go up. As you probably know, the tariffs have been "paused" for 30 days, which helps Trump save face, but I suspect he will impose them after all, at least temporarily, in the early spring.
I've decided I am not going to North Carolina in March, and I don't see how I could go to upstate New York the first week of April. This one is harder because The Fixx have rescheduled their cancelled concert for that weekend, and I probably could figure out some way to get between Rochester/Syracuse and NYC in time, but I just can't justify it. The Orange One is too unpredictable, and his word doesn't mean anything,* so no one can count on the tariff threat (and other ways he is bullying Canada) being over by then and he will have moved onto something else, like hunting down minority hires in the government. (I only wish I were kidding.)
On top of everything else, the uncertainty is causing the Canadian dollar to keep dropping against the US dollar, so I decided I really ought to bite the bullet and buy a few items before the Canadian dollar drops still further. I had already ordered a Rohmer box set, and a Kieslowski Colours Trilogy, though the latter I had shipped to Toronto.
There are always a few books that catch my attention, particularly if it is particularly hard to find them in libraries or local book shops. I have slowly been rebuilding my Craig Nova collection.** I had ordered Incandescence, but eventually Amazon cancelled the order. As I was searching for a replacement, I found a handful of copies of signed editions, generally of the original hardback edition.
But I have to say I am drawn to the first trade paperback edition, as it fits much better with the other books I have picked up lately, like Turkey Hash and The Geek.
Nonetheless, I was quite surprised to find that shipping the signed copy (from the UK) was cheaper to Canada than to the States, so I went ahead and ordered that version and hope it turns up reasonably soon. I'll start going through Nova's books again (just as I did in my 20s!), though I don't care nearly as much for his more recent forays into genre fiction. I thought Wetware was quite bad, and I think he is trying to channel Eric Ambler in The Informer (which I am currently reading) with this tale of crosses and double-crosses set in Weimar Berlin, but I don't think he is really succeeding. Anyway, I should wrap this up in another day or so.
I've been aware of Robert Coover for a long time, and actually read a handful of his racier short stories and Pinocchio in Venice. When he passed away, several of the obituaries said that The Public Burning was more relevant than ever. I have been looking in the local bookstores for a copy of this with no luck. (Probably Elliot's books would have had a copy.) So I broke down and ordered that. (It does seem that DeLillo's Underworld may have some similarities to The Public Burning, but I am really not sure I want to reread Underworld. Others have said that McElroy's Women and Men also has some connections to The Public Burning, and maybe this is the prompt I need to crack open the copy on my bookshelf.) I don't know when I will have the Coover book in my hands, but I'll tackle it at some point and then McElroy in the not-so-distant future after that.
I also ordered a copy of the catalog for Southern/Modern, the exhibit at the Mint Museum, which just closed this past weekend. At least this was on sale, to help make up for the slumping dollar.
Then I ordered a couple of other signed books by Maxine Kumin: Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief and Where I Live: New And Selected Poems 1990-2010. I haven't read her work in quite some time, but I'm feeling I am going to be on a Kumin kick soon.
Interestingly, one book I have had in my basket for quite some time was currently unavailable, but the bookstore guy said he would be back on Thurs., and I could put in my order then. That will likely be the last thing I have sent to my stepmom (in the States). However, I'm sort of working my way through books that I found out about through libraries. Somewhere along the way I must have seen a copy of Will Clarke's Lord Vishnu's Love Handles on a recommended read shelf (at a library), but this must actually have been in Vancouver or even Burnaby!
TPL doesn't have a copy, which isn't a huge surprise, but Robarts doesn't either, which is unfortunate. I did find a handful of signed copies online, and I thought I had found a copy where shipping to Canada wasn't outrageous. However, I got all the way up to final checkout, and then the shipping price jumped up $10 or so, so I dropped it from my cart like a hot potato. Since I actually would like to try to read the book this spring, sending it to the States (where there is no clear path for me to actually visit the States soon to pick my stuff up) seems a bit foolhardy. While I generally don't like reading things completely electronically (and have fallen out of habit), I probably should just read the ebook in this case. Still, I will try to remember to take a look for this at BMV and Circus Books and Seekers and maybe She Said Boom on Roncy (since I should get there before it closes this Saturday).
So after I wrap up this very short fable called Once a Greek by Durrenmatt (which seems a bit like some of Steinbeck's really short novels) and Nova's The Informer, I think the next thing to read will be Skvorecky's Two Murders in My Double Life, Gide's Lafcadio's Adventure, Lampedusa's The Leopard, Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods. Oh, and maybe whatever the book club that just was started at work is reading! (Surprisingly, a lot of Kundera and Murakami.) That's definitely more than enough, but I also will probably tackle a few more books from the library, including O'Nan's Last Night at the Lobster (which seems short) and The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellano (which seems long).
* This commentary by Gaby Hinsliff seems quite on point: "Since nobody voted to Make America Poor Again, maybe ordinary Americans will soon tire of this. But Brexit showed that voters’ reaction to realising they’ve been had is often to double down, because it’s too painful to think they have brought this on themselves."
** I have just decided that I need to put them up on the actual shelves, not in one of several piles of books in my study, so I will probably swap Nova and Alice Munro (where I am fairly unlikely to hang onto her story collections after I read them once for somewhat obvious reasons...). I also have been very slowly adding Iris Murdoch books on the same shelf. I think I now have 7 (though I seem to have misplaced Under the Net (which I enjoyed a lot, so I probably hung onto it)), but have no intention of buying all 26 or so of her novels.
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