trinityofone

So I obviously smoked some serious crack before going to bed last night, because my dreams were a multifandom extravaganza.

( BtVS, HP, QaF, and SGA wackiness )

Yesterday, I finally got fed up with Trinity's intensely irritating library and went to see if I could find a good used bookstore. For a city that trades so much on its literary reputation, used bookstores are not thick on the ground here in Dublin. Everyone talks about Books Upstairs, which is right across the street from campus, but I've been in there twice and--how can I put this delicately?--it sucks. It has, like, four books in it, and three of them are by Dan Brown. (The fourth is some pretentious piece of literary theory--gag me.)

Anyway, I had heard that Abbey Street had a couple of decent places, so I took the long way 'round, mostly to avoid crossing the River Liffey at O'Connell Street--it's always horribly congested. I ended up in Temple Bar completely by accident, and, I think, stumbled across U2's recording studio there. I think. I didn't look too closely. *is resolutely Not A Stalker*

I started out with a list of ten books, and on Abbey Street I was able to find three of them. Two were at Chapters, which has a decent, if horribly organzied, used section. (What is with bookstores that insist on dividing fiction into "Literature" and "Fiction" sections? It's not only pretentious, it's stupid--you end up with the same book shelved in multiple places, and nobody can find anything. Chapters was even worse--I stumbled across The Great Gatsby in "Literature," "Fiction," and "Classics.") The third was at a bargain store that basically looked like a room where somebody had emptied a carton of books out onto the floor--and not in a good way. Then today I managed to pick up two more at Hodges Figgis, which almost wins Favorite Bookstore on name alone--it sounds like it should be located in Diagon Alley. ;-)

In case anybody's curious, these are the books I was looking for:

( My Reading List )

Seven are for class, three are potential pleasure reading. Anyone who can guess which three (or which one of the others I've actually read previously) will impress me deeply, and probably knows me better than I know myself. ;-)

(Oh, and in case anyone is in terrible suspense: I found the Haggard, the Hogg, the More, the Stoker, and the Wolfe. You can rest easy now. *g*)

ANYWAY...none of this was actually the highpoint of the day. That was my discovery of what I think must be the only Mexican restaurant in Dublin. It's called Taco Taco, it's in a food court off Abbey Street, and it's really not that good. But MY GOD--I ate a quesadilla yesterday, and it was the best thing I had ever tasted. I think I must've been experiencing salsa withdrawal. Bless you, Taco Taco. Bless you.