Borders was probably my favorite store in the world. It's not necessarily that I love reading more than anything else-- although I do like reading a lot. It's just that there are endless things to look at. Whenever I went there, it was hard for me spend less than 30 minutes in the store. Coffee, music, books, magazines... There are travel books, cook books, books about games, books about history, novels, comic books, picture books. So many totally different, interesting things in one place. Unlike the library, all the popular books are always there-- you don't have to order them. I don't possibly have enough money or time to actually read all of them, but they allow you to pick them up and page through them and put them back, hoping that maybe you'll actually leave with at least one. Which I usually do. But there are so many different books that I like to pick up and look through that I would never actually buy. And that's what I like about Borders-- being able to look through these amazing books.
Barnes and Noble is a fair substitute, but Borders was so much better. I'm definitely still mourning their loss. Especially when I see the furniture store that took their place at Roseville Mall. Couldn't they have at least replaced it with something fun?? Like an ice cream store?? It's so depressing.
Anyway, back when Borders was still around, I decided to try an experiment. When I paged through this wonderful, interesting books, I decided that I would buy one. Not one of the ones I would normally get, but one of the ones that captivated me because I knew I would "never" buy it.
So I bought the following book: Backwards in High Heels- The Impossible Art of Being Female. It's completely the opposite of anything I would normally buy. First of all, I almost always buy novels or magazines. Secondly, it's basically a "power of the woman" book. Trust me, I'm glad I'm a girl-- I understand all the good things that come along with the gender-- and I understand that we have a history of being treated horribly and we should be grateful we've come so far. And I know there are still things that are unfair like the standards the media sets for us, or the fact that we on average get paid less. But otherwise, for the most part, I'm fine with the way things are (at least in America-- the Middle East still has a LONG way to go.) And a lot of feminists scare me. Actually, I should say a lot of activitists kind of scare me. Because they are so... extreme. And angry. I don't necessarily disagree with what they say, I just usually stay away from them.
But these were the things that initially appealed to me about the book: it's a whole assortment of the most random things. For instance, the first chapter is about their perspective of falling in love, and different kinds of love. And, when I first bought the book, I had just started dating Brian and I wasn't sure what I was thinking or how I felt. So it was good to hear someone else try to make sense of it-- and with facts too! Like the different parts of the brain that were affected, and different philosophers' ideas. It was interesting. Then I found a page that said we needed to eat more iron as women for this and this reason-- which I had never known. There were chapters about money, beauty, men, and they were also random enough to include recipes in the back. It appealed to me the way magazines appeal to me-- probably because I have ADD. There are little snippets of random subjects, so when you start to get bored, you are able to move on to a completely different thing. So I bought it.
And when I was looking for something to read for my bucket list, I thought, hey! I should actually try to read this. So I did.
Brian and I spent two Saturdays in a row sitting in Starbucks reading. He's currently reading the Game of Thrones series and is obsessed-- whenever he's interested in something it's ALL he wants to do for about a month or two. So we were both happy to spend the day sipping on coffee and egg nog lattes and reading our books. It took me two Saturdays (and a little bit of a Wednesday) to finish it. That should either tell you how quick of a read it was or how much time we spent in Starbucks. Or both.
The book itself was okay. There were definitely interesting parts. I was really interested to read the love section again because my relationship with Brian now is totally different than where it was when I first bought the book. I've never been in a relationship this long, so it's all new to me. It actually gave some valuable insight as far as different things that have come up in our relationship: for instance, the way they said men "comfort" you when you are upset held true for Brian. Brian likes to "fix" things and tries to find a solution to a problem, while I usually just want someone to be sympathetic. I'm sure that's not true for everyone, but it was interesting that the book talked about it, because it's true for us.
I will say, there were several chapters that I did not really care to read. For instance, the chapter on politics, although that's probably only because I really hate politics. They also had a chapter on motherhood, which took any glamour I might have felt about motherhood (which was not much to begin with) out of it right away when they went into detail as far as what you go through physically.
One thing I found interesting was that the book was written by people in England. It's not that England is completely different from the United States, but since they talked about government and taxes and food, there were things that were definitely not applicable to us. They also used British slang like "sod off." So it was kind of funny.
I'm not sure how I felt about it as a whole. There were parts that I loved and parts that I hated. But that's probably not a surprise since there were so many different random topics within the book. I probably could have treated it like a magazine and only read the things that were interesting to me, but I had promised myself I'd finish the whole thing, so that's what I did.
I will say this: sometimes it is best to just leave the mystery and appeal of the books on Borders bookshelves on the bookshelf (I guess I should say Barnes and Noble at this time.) Sometimes a book is more captivating when you don't read the entire thing through. But every now and then it is fun to just buy it. Sometimes it's good to read the things you would never otherwise read, because maybe it is something you actually should read.
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