Books in the mail.

As many of you know, Jeremy and I have been ordering books online. Most of the time it works like a charm. You get second hand books, super cheap, delivered to your mailbox or front door. What more could you as for?! But we ordered two sets of books from different places. One shipment got here really quickly, but the other one (which happened to have all MY books in it) was taking its sweet time. When we got back from our vacation to Jeju there were several slips on our door saying that we had post, so we went to the the post office to pick it up. Unfortunately, apparently if you don't show up fast enough they send the mail back from whence it came. We weren't fast enough and our books had been sent back.
Luckily, soon after I had finished the last of my books here that I actually wanted to read, Jer and I went textbook shopping for the new semester. At the textbook shop I picked up a copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Perfect for recapping before the movie comes out in November!!!! Unluckily, soon after I started reading "Harry Potter" I made the mistake of reading outloud to Jeremy one evening. He instantly got sucked in (who wouldn't!!) and I lost a book for reading while he is at work. Of course it is nice to read outloud to him, and what a perfect book for the job, but that wasn't exactly the point!
Finally I gave up on waiting for our books to re-arrive and started reading "The Great Gatsby". A classic that I wasn't enthused about reading, but one that it wouldn't hurt to have read. Then, as predicted, as I stepped with two feet into reading this book... our books arrived. Now I have to make a decision. Do I finish "Gatsby" even though I'm not overly excited about it and I'm not that far in, or do I put it down and start to read "Dune" which I have been waiting to read all summer long? Dad would say that that isn't a decision, of course I should just stop and read the book that I want to read. But for some reason quitting a book once I've started it has never been in my reading vocabulary. Perhaps it is a holdover from when I was younger and reading was always a real challenge. Like I always put so much effort and discipline into getting through each page that giving up on a book was like wasting all that I had put in.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I do know that I'm excited about our new books! Three arrived: Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and The Iron Heel. All of them are really old and it was kind of exciting just to open up the package and see such old things while we are in a country that is big on everything being new new new. The oldest of the three is The Iron Heel. It was published in 1944 and is in great condition. Here are some pictures of it. We both got a good laugh out of Penguin Books advertising cigarettes on the back of one of their books. Not something you would see now for sure. The ad on the inside cover is pretty funny too. It turns out that Horlicks is a malted milk drink. After reading the ad, that is NOT what I would have guessed.