I joined a book club! And a website.

I haven't belonged to a book club since I was in high school, and that was a right irregular outfit driven more by the snacks our faculty sponsor brought to morning meetings than by actual books. So one of the first things I did when I moved is sign up for a book group through a networking site I visit a lot.

The book they picked (and had free copies of, luckily) was Grant Stoddard's WORKING STIFF: THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ACCIDENTAL SEXPERT. Stoddard is a British guy who moved to the US for love and fell into a customer service job at the highbrow sex magazine Nerve.com, where he was forced to try all kinds of crazy things for his column "I Did It For Science." (To give a relatively innocuous example, for one column he flew to southern California, interviewed porn stars and had a walk-on role in a porn movie.) The whole book is laced with Stoddard's dry humor and his disbelief at being regarded as a sex guru just because he was willing to try almost anything for his editor, and only much later thought, "I'm developing a bit of a reputation, aren't I?" If I ever meet him, I would like to ask him whether, in fact, there was anything he would not do for science.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but when I was reading this on the subway yesterday I felt rather more disapproving glances than usual. Okay, the title is kind of a dirty joke, but the cover isn't inappropriate to carry around... right? It's not a book for kids, surely, but it's not as if there are pictures (although Stoddard is bare-chested on the back cover... horrors!) Maybe they were just staring at me alternately cringing and laughing with each new scrape Stoddard got himself into. I don't think I've ever felt the urge to censor my reading on public transit before. Then again, it's not every day an "accidental sexpert" writes a memoir.

I'm passing it along via BookMooch, something I finally signed up for after hearing on blogs like A Work In Progress about this never-ending parade of free books. Of course, I don't have much to be mooched at the moment, after the big pre-move weed-out, but I've now given away two books and have one on its way. I tried Paperback Swap and found it a little dictatorial (what with the, "Send it in 24 hours or we'll cancel it and slap you on the wrist" policy); BookMooch looks much more realistic for those of us who don't want to go to the post office every day.

Quotable Forster

Well, it isn't exactly quotable, but I enjoyed this section from A Room With A View:

He became self-conscious and kept glancing round to see if they were observed. His courage had gone.

"Yes?"

"Up to now I have never kissed you."

She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately.

"No--more you have," she stammered.

"Then I ask you--may I now?"

"Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can't run at you, you know."

At that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities. Her reply was inadequate. She gave such a business-like lift to her veil. As he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil. As he touched her, his gold pince-nez became dislodged and was flattened between them.

Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way. Why could he not do as any labourer or navvy--nay, as any young man behind the counter would have done? He recast the scene. Lucy was standing flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took her in his arms; she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him ever after for his manliness. For he believed that women revere men for their manliness.

One resolution gone decently; others to follow?

In January I resolved not to buy any more books before I moved. Now that the move is complete (in the "All my boxes are in the state" sense, not in the "I can have guests over" sense) I can say that... I failed, because I have bought books, but I also got rid of more than I kept.

Most of my move was accomplished in the last week of February and the first two weeks of March. Before that I bought six books -- the Janice Dickinson one I blogged about, and five more at the employee bookstore where I was working at the time. (What can I say? The discount was killer.) At the same time, I left eight books on the swap shelf at the office library and returned several more galleys I'd borrowed from the free table while I worked there. I even left a book in Philadelphia's 30th Street Train Station, and sincerely hope someone is out there enjoying it. Since moving I have bought... one book. Either I am becoming more fiscally sensible, or the local branch of the New York Public Library is doing its job.

(I'd actually vote for the latter, because I currently have seven books out and a load of requests in the system. There's nothing like stopping in to pick up a request and finding five with your name on them. And my bookshelves look so dignified!)

I do foresee at least one more book purchase this month, but this one's my own fault: I borrowed the Anthony Lane collection Nobody's Perfect from my friend B. back in October, and I spilled coffee on it during a trip to IKEA. I should blame the discount manufacturers' commodification of lifestyle, but I am a klutz, and I'm going to buy him a new copy and keep the stained (but otherwise un-annotated) one for my library. B., if you're reading this, sorry.

One of my other resolutions? To update more regularly. I swear, this time's the charm.