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A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Thoughts and reflections on works of fiction and literature. Pondering of life through pictures and words. Babbling about gay rights. Travelogues and anecdotes.

  • [1] Annie Proulx: Brokeback Mountain
  • [2] Arthur Golden: Memoirs of a Geisha
  • [3] Yu Hua: To Live
  • [4] Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty
  • [5] Colm Toibin: The Master
  • [6] Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
  • [7] William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
  • [8] Charles Higham: The Civilization of Angkor
  • [9] Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case
  • [10] Dai Sijie: Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch
  • [11] Alan Hollinghurst: The Swimming-Pool Library
  • [12] Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
  • [13] Colm Toibin: The Blackwater Lightship
  • [14] Alan Hollinghurst: The Folding Star
  • [15] Ross King: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
  • [16] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
  • [17] Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
  • [18] Colm Toibin: The Story of the Night
  • [19] John Banville: Shroud
  • [20] Leo Tolstoy: Resurrection
  • [21] Peter Hessler: River Town, Two Years on the Yangtze
  • [22] Ian McEwan: The Atonement
  • [24] Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
  • [25] Ignacio Padilla: Shadow without a Name
  • [26] Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose
  • [27] Richard Russo: Straight Man
  • [28] Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground
  • [29] Alan Hollinghurst: The Spell
  • [30] Hermann Broch: The Death of Virgil
  • [31] James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room
  • [32] Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
  • [33] Xingjian Gao: One Man's Bible
  • [34] C. Jay Cox: Latter Days
  • [35] Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird
  • [36] William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew
  • [37] Daniel A. Helminiak: What The Bible Really Says about Homosexuality
  • [38] James Baldwin: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
  • [39] Kenji Yoshino: Covering - The Hidden Assault of Civil Rights
  • [40] Italo Calvino: If, On a Winter's Night A Traveler
  • [41] Arthur Phillips: The Egyptologist
  • [42] George Orwell: 1984
  • [43] Michael Warner: The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and Ethics of Queer Life
  • [44] Andrew Sullivan: Virtually Normal
  • [45] Henry James: The Wings of the Dove
  • [46] Jose Saramago: Blindness
  • [47] Umberto Eco: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
  • [48] Dan Brown: Da Vinci Code
  • [49] Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
  • [50] Ken Follett: The Pillars of Earth
  • [51] Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace
  • [52] Michael Thomas Ford: Alec Baldwin Doesn't Like Me
  • [53] Jonathan Franzen: How To Be Alone
  • [54] Jonathan Lethem: The Fortress of Solitude
  • [55] Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club
  • [56] Zadie Smith: White Teeth
  • [57] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Double
  • [58] Jose Saramago: The Double
  • [59] Andrew Holleran: Dancer from the Dance
  • [60] Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O & Other Stories
  • [61] Andrew Holleran: In September, the Light Changes
  • [62] Tom Perrotta: Little Children
  • March 16, 2006

     

    So I Succumbed to the Rewards Program

    ...and now I have to carry one extra card in my wallet, in addition to the Safeway Club Card, the Albertson's Card, the library card, the staff ID card... Are we in an economic slump or what? It occurs to me that all the major retail chains are on the binge of slashing prices and giving out perks. Anyway, I succumbed to the Borders Rewards Program and made a stunningly big purchase. I have acquired within the past week: Arthur & George, Never Let Me Go, Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone (I'm on a binge of James Baldwin), Enduring Love, The Sea (I regret of not getting this one in Bangkok as the city's Asia Books has stocked up on the UK trade paperback edition), and And Tango Makes Three (story of a charming penguin family of three in New York Zoo that provokes the controversy of shelving a book with an allusion to homosexuality in children books section in Missouri). I'm about $3 short of a personal shopping day, which is a reward that I earn when I spend $50 or more in Qualifying Purchases in any calendar month. A Personal Shopping Day entitles me to save 10% on an entire day of shopping, no matter how many times you shop on that day. While I'm on the way to earn this reward, Borders stuffs my mailbox with coupons galore. How can I resist all these perks right?

    6 Comments:

    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    I'm with you - I hate carrying all those cards. Anyway looks like you got lots of great reading material!

    3/17/2006 6:43 AM  
    Blogger Greg said...

    I admit to succumbing to the lure of Borders Rewards, as well. Though I only purchased two books: Practical Demonkeeping and Elizabeth Costello. I can easily spend the $50/month.

    Is that a bad thing?

    3/17/2006 10:12 AM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    iliana-
    I'm well-stocked with books-I cannot bear not having a book ready for the next read when I'm about half-way through my current reading. Is that too much? :o)

    greg-
    i walk past by borders every day so there's always the impulse/temptation to buy books.

    3/18/2006 7:48 AM  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    I hate all those cards, too, but I still have plenty of them. I could (and sometimes do) easily spend $50 a month in a bookstore--actually it is oftentimes more. I have the B&N card, but they are not too forthcoming with extra coupons which is a bummer.

    3/21/2006 6:55 PM  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Can you help me to understand the appeal of the Borders Rewards card? I work in a Borders store, & I am amazed at the mostly enthusiastic response to the program. That personal shopping day? The 10% savings barely recoups the 9% sales tax here in Chicago. The e-mail coupons -- do you really use enough of them to make a difference? Tell me, please!

    3/22/2006 9:22 PM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    anonymous-
    Why not? I think it's a great appeal. Every time I use the Rewards card I earn points for shopping day, but what really appeals to me are the weekly 30% coupons and the ones that pop out of the cash register along with the receipts. Honestly I don't really care for the Personal Shopping Day which offers 10% discount on unlimited items throughout the day. I look for the big discount coupons....

    3/24/2006 2:14 PM  

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