Wednesday, July 30, 2008

New Secondhand Books Discovered Today

It was a good day in the limited world of English books in a country that has Dutch, French and German as official languages.

I live in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region but secondhand book treasures are often found here.

Delights from a day where I gave up searching for a dress and bought 3 books and an excellent movie: Jamilia and another book on singer k.d lang.

I have been devouring books of late and 'ran out' in France. There was a beautiful bookshop in the village of Ussel but they carried nothing in English. In the bigger city of Aubusson, there was a small selection but nothing particularly serious or interesting. I was left envious, as I noted the titles and authors they were carrying in French.

I consumed a book about Micheal Palin while there and then set to work on Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game but some evenings I didn't have the energy to consume Mr Hesse, who demands more than the person I was in those heady days of much wandering and country air.

Music ...I'm mostly listening to Fabrizio de Andre at the moment. A little sharing of resources means that I have almost the entire collection of his music on my mp3 player. If curious, you can read more of him here.

Life is good.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can really recommend : "In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century" by Geert Mak and "Le Huitième Prophète" by Franz-Olivier Giesbert (in French for the time being).

Di Mackey said...

Thanks for reminding me about Geert Mak's book. I must look for it.

My French probably isn't up to the second one ... since I only know, hello, thank you and goodbye, and my 'how are you' makes people laugh.

Daddyinlove said...

Amazing to know that a New-Zealander living in Belgium loves one of my myths, Fabrizio De André.
I almost feel the need to thank you for that! :)


PS: beautiful photos by the way!!!

Di Mackey said...

Grazie, Mr Administrator. I'm glad you enjoyed the photographs.

And I feel lucky to have found Fabrizio despite being a New Zealander living in Belgium :)

I also have one Francesco di Gregori - Alice non lo sa, and then there's Eugeno Finardi's 'La forza dell'amore' simply because I liked the translation I received for 'Dolce Italia' so much.