The bookstore at The Mall is going out of business. Actually, we have 3 malls, but only one of them is "The Mall." The other two malls (College Hills & the Outlet Mall) are on their last legs. The outlet mall (which I worked at for a short time) never has been successful, whereas I'm not exactly sure what torpedoed the other one, I remember going there all the time as a kid.

I'm not sure if The Mall is starting to have this same problem or if it just happens to be something with the bookstore. A lot of big chain stores unnattached to the mall have popped up around here over the years, so I don't know if that's draining off their customers or what. I myself rarely visit the mall anymore (the only shopping I really like to do is at Barnes & Noble or Best Buy), so I might be contributing to this whole thing.

Anyway, I went to The Mall and bought a buttload of books, since the closing sale renders them 30% off. I picked up Pigs in Heaven, which is the sequel to a book called The Bean Trees, which I read a couple days ago because a friend said that the main character reminded him of me, and of course when someone says something like that the curiousity eats you up. Though another friend has compared me to this chick in a novel where she has to herd this group of ancient vikings around a modern town with hilarity ensuing, but it's obscure enough I haven't been able to pick it up yet, so the curiousity's still eating me on that point. I thought of getting another of the Bean Trees' author (Barbara Kingsolver)'s books, but most of hers are in that big format that costs twice as much that I abhor buying even at a discount, so instead I picked up a couple Michael Crichton novels I haven't read. I think after these (the first Jurassic Park novel, which I don't know why I've never read it, and The Great Train Robbery), I will have read all of his considerably prolific work except for Eaters of the Dead. Also I got a sequel to another one of the books I got last time (The Novice) and a random one that is about aztecs or parallel universes or something like that.

Though, the way I fly through books if they're any good, I don't know how long these'll last me, since I find myself bored and unemployed this summer. I already finished The Novice today (and a book I'd finished this morning before I left to get more). I should probably go to the library.