I can feel a new obsession coming on...

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>so I went to one of their computers to look up the section of the
>bookstore

You mean that you can go to a computer in the store and look up something like a library's card catalogue? That would be neat to see. I always have what I'm looking for in my notepad. There are not any bookstores like that around here. When I have been to Walden's (sic!) the worker asks if they can help and I say, "I seriously doubt it." Use of the computer would be great!

Yep. I can feel it. A new money-costing obsession is coming over me.

Background: I was in Borders the other day, wandering around wondering what book I should buy and I suddenly remembered that for awhile now I had been wanting to buy Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and so I went to one of their computers to look up the section of the bookstore in which it was in since for the life of me I couldn't remember Sacks' name.

Well, the computer said it was available in-store, but I couldn't quite find the medical section and so I asked a worker and she led me directly to it and began looking for the book even before I did. But we couldn't find it. Apparently it had been a bargain book and, alas, had finally been sent back to the storehouse. So they no longer had it. But...

They did have another book of his which I had ALSO forgotten I was wanting to get called An Anthropologist on Mars. So I bought it and took it home with me in giddiness.

Well, I happened to be at Borders again today, since my mother needed to return a magazine, and I went to the medical section again and saw that he had a biography of himself entitled Uncle Tungsten: Memoirs of a Chemical Boyhood and I got all excited and had to buy it of course because I started thinking about Oliver Sacks' character in the movie Awakenings (played by Robin Williams) which was based on his RL experience and the book by the same name which was the basis for the film (a book which incidentally I'll have to get, too ) because I really liked how his character was portrayed and found him (the movie version) highly intriguing and wondered if he was really like that IRL or not. So... I bought it.

And then I came home and had a lovely afternoon of reading An Anthropologist on Mars and I've already bookmarked all his books on Amazon.com-- not really with the intention of buying them on Amazon since I can likely get some of them cheaper elsewhere-- but just to have my list readily available.

So, I am beginning my OLIVER SACKS COLLECTION!! !


PS- Sacks has a section in An Anthropologist on Mars on Temple Grandin for any of you interested.

Yep. Borders Book Stores tend to have them in case the buyer doesn't remember some of the details or what section a certain book would be in. It's great. I truly would have expected Sacks' books to be in the Psychology section. But they weren't; they were in the medical section.