Today I will confess a milestone I reached a few days ago I had hoped to postpone for years and years. No, I didn't get reading glasses. But you be the judge and see if this is worse.
On Sunday, I found myself buying a book I knew I already owned and couldn't find.
The book was LOLITA, which my book club is doing at the end of this month. I read it originally in 2002, I think, so I needed the refresher -- but my Vintage paperback copy (see cover, left) was nowhere to be found at my parents' house.
A short biography of the missing book: I'm pretty sure I got it from a girl who was planning to leave it behind in St. Petersburg, Russia, and read it either there or soon after I got home. After that, it is all speculation. Then I must've lent it to my sister -- or maybe my mom? Or both? Maybe Mom lent it to someone after her book club did READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN? Or it could be that I sold it or gave it away in one of my many moves since then. Sold it on a side street in Madrid? Dropped it in a box for African schools at my college bookstore?
Our meeting's still a few weeks away, but I need to get cracking on Nabokov's incredibly dense prose now. So with a heavy heart I entered Local Large Chain Bookstore and bought another copy, whose cover is not as memorable, and which I left on my nightstand for fear it too will disappear.
I figured having to replace a book because I couldn't find it might happen to me someday. I just didn't realize it would be so soon. See also: I still have too many books.
