House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski : This book was recommended to me by readers from my private blog. According to ------, it was 'fucking crazy and even creepier'. ------ said that it 'scared the shit out of me and i think my book was possessed or something cuz pages kept falling out and shit'.

I was immediately intrigued and bought it. The book is about a house that a photo-journalist moves into with his family and they find out that the interior of the house is bigger than the exterior. Which is physically impossible, of course.

What intrigues me is the style of the book. It's not written like a normal book. It's a bit schizophrenic and some pages have only a few words on them (kind of like a book form of e.e. cumings).

It also has a ridiculous amount of footnotes and even the footnotes have footnotes. The interesting thing is most of the footnotes reference books that don't even exist. It's a bit of a mindfuck and I'm enjoying it. I'm about 3 chapters in and they are just discovering the creepiness of the house.

Danielewski is quoted as saying:

I'm excited to get to that part because for now I haven't noticed any real hints of romance but I love books that show romance in a different light, not exact romantic love between people, per se, but maybe with objects or places or things. Love isn't fully defined by romance, it can be many other things. But that's a topic for a different day.

The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I picked up my copy from a charity mart in NYC. I could fill up a plastic bag of books for a donation of $1. Amazing. I felt generous and gave $5 and the lady running the stand grabbed my hands and thanked me about 20 times. Sweet lady.

Anyways, this is my purse book. Yes. I have purse books. I like to bring a book with me everywhere I go. You never know when you're stuck waiting for a train or waiting for a friend who's always late for your lunch dates. The copy I own is super thin and something I can just throw into my purse.

I also wanted to read it because, come on, it's Fyodor Dostoevsky. I want to get through all my Russian classics and this is pretty thin compared to The Brothers Karamazov.

Also this is apparently based on his own life and deals with the psychology of gambling, which is something I never really understood as a Psych student.

This book reads a lot easier than my other Russian books, but maybe it's because I'm not intimidated by the size of the book.

So many books to read, so little time.