Today the weather was fantastic! And I was in a fabulous mood too which made it that much better. It was one of the days that makes you feel so good and nothing gets you down. Perfect!
I went for a long walk and went shopping (got myself a beautiful sweater - the price was just right). I stopped in at the bookstore and saw that they have all of Naguib Mahfous's books translated into English! They were a bit pricey but I thought if I get them one or two at a time it won't be too bad. (You can get the entire set in one box for about 230 LD). For those of you who don't know who Naguib Mahfous is: He is an Egyptian writer that won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988. You can read more on his background here.
Bookstores here in Libya leave a lot to be desired. Mostly they sell dry, boring textbooks. There are some classic novels in English, but there aren't very many of those and because they are classics they've already been read in the past by me and most other native English speakers. Also, most of the books are in Arabic. Books are appreciated and treated like gold by the foriegn born English speaking community here. We trade them back and forth and do our best to bring new books back when travelling as well as share any books that friends and family have shipped out to us. Oh if only there was a decent lending library here! That would be wonderful - but we make do.
I was looking at the sidebar today and noticed that I've had about 8,000 visitors to my blog. Thanks to all of you who read what I have to post. I hope you enjoy reading the posts as much as I enjoy posting.
Truly a wonderful day! I hope your day was equally nice!
Saturday, December 10, 2005
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After living in Libya for twenty-six years you would think my Arabic would be perfect, but it is far, far, far from that. I do get my point ... -
In my last post I wrote about how I felt on the first day of my arrival back to Libya after a month's absence. I said it was dirtier and...
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The rains have finally come, accompanied by lightening and thunder. The weather is cooler and the dust has settled. We'll see how treac...
Thank God there is amazon.com and I can buy wherever I want from there. But I do miss going to Barnes&Noble’s bookstore. Just to the shelves, grab a book or magazine, order a coffee and voila. Oh, yeah, and there is no smoke around you.
ReplyDeleteHere in Switzerland, the bookstores are boring, terrible quiet, no coffee at all and tons of smokes and smokers.
I just love the bookstore’s atmosphere!