Above and beyond

Last year, following my little sister's example, I started an Amazon wish list. Basically a list of books/DVDs/CDs/etc. that I would like to someday own. I found that this came in handy for a couple of reasons: 1)I could use this as a reminder of things that I would want to eventually read, (whether I actually bought them, borrowed them, or got them from the library), and 2)I could direct my mother there when my birthday/Christmas came around and she asked for ideas.

A year goes by, and sure enough my mom starts asking for birthday/Christmas ideas. And I direct her to the wish list. I figure she can pick out a couple of things there.

Well, last Wednesday there's a box from Amazon in my hallway. Cool. I open it, and there's about a dozen books from my wish list in there. But, wait, there's more. Yesterday, another box shows up and there's another ten or so books. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback. That's some seriously above and beyond going on there. My parents bought me pretty much my entire wish list (with the exception of one book that wasn't out yet.) I really can't fathom why. If I had to guess I'd attribute it to a combination of feeling bad that I wasn't available for Thanksgiving, that they're not around for my birthday, and because they just came into a chunk of cash in that they finally received the rest of the money from selling their Weymouth house. I can't see any other reason why they would have spent so much.

But now I have plenty to read, including:

- 2 books about porn. (Jenna Jameson's autobiography and a history of the porn industry in general.) Thanks mom and dad!

- A bunch of Raymond Chandler

- 2 books about zombies.

- 2 books with "Make Love" in the title. The aforementioned Jameson autobiography, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star", and Bruce Campbell's, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way."

- A book about how Houdini might have worked as a spy for Scotland Yard. Non-fiction.

- A book about how things are tough in the Middle East. Syriana was based on it. Non-fiction.

- A book about the film industry that I don't really know anything about other than my little sister reccomended it.

- Some of my requisite sci-fi and fantasy, by such folk as Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, and the awesomely named (and apparently quite mysterious) John Twelve Hawks.

- Some regular old fiction.

- And Enrnest Hemmingway's collected short stories.

I'll be busy for a while.