Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

In the past year, I realized just how much money I was wasting on books - I'm a really, really quick reader and I would spent a lot of money at once, usually for a stack of hardcovers, read them each in a day - or two at the most - then stick them on a shelf to collect dust.

When Manbug (remember the reference? Have you seen the commerical yet?) and I made the move to Austin, we lugged THOUSANDS of books to Half-Price Books (a Texas mecca if I do say so myself) and I think we received $5.43 for our effort (not really, it was over $100 but that doesn't make the story interesting).

This new-found self-realization coupled perfectly with my new-found fiscal responsibility and I placed a very important item on my "to do" list in July - get an Austin library card. And on January 3, 2009, I did just that (actually, six months isn't such a bad average for me to cross something off my "to do" list).

Austin is nothing, if not a responsible city - so I was limited to only two books on my first check-out. Perhaps they have had people get a new card, check-out 100 books and disappear. Who knows. Seems like a lot of effort to me when there's a Half-Price Books about 1/2 mile away that's likely selling the same book for a dollar.

Anyway, I had entered the library with the list of books that I wanted to read - 31 candidates in all. I found one of the prospective reads, written by one of my favorite authors - well, she's a favorite in the sense that I read one of her books and loved it. But when a book moves me to tears - I place that author in a special place in my heart.

So imagine my surprise, when, after all of this effort, I opened "The Almost Moon" to read this:

And there it was, the hole that had given birth to me. The cleft that had
compelled the mystery of my father's love for forty years.

This was not the first time I'd been face-to-face with my mother's
genitalia....

Good grief Alice - a little warning would have BEEN NICE. Although, I suppose the previous 43 pages of contemplative dialogue over the complicated relationship you shared with your mother prior to murdering her should have been my warning. Perhaps I'm naive.

I don't think I can finish this book. Has anyone read it and loved it? If so, please come to it's defense since I allocated 1/2 of my very first library privileges to these words!