There's one born every minute

To quote the good man P.T. Barnum on the topics of suckers.

Today, Pigeon told me about a 90% off sale at the university bookstore. He was going to check it out, and I figured I'd tag along, browse for a sec, and then mosey on back to the office since there probably wasn't anything interesting left at this point. Yeah; right. Like I'm physically capable of making a walk-through in a bookstore without a heap of literature. They sure saw me coming from a mile away. As a matter of fact, I suspect that even if I sprinted through a bookstore, I'd still have a book in my hands when I emerged at the other entrance.*

*Adapted from Norwegian stand-up comedian Dagfinn Lyngbø, ca. 2000.

What I got was the following:

• The Inside Story - DNA to RNA to protein: readings from Trends in Biochemical Sciences (Edited by Jan Witkowski). Lots of autobiographical articles by the scientists that changed the field. I'll read this and get inspired.
• The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film (by Linda Seger). 'Cause you never know.....
• Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota (by Chuck Klosterman). I've read one of his other books - Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs - and it failed massively in impressing me. Way too whiney and self-important. Still; at a price of 20 NOK, a book related to heavy metal is probably worth it. I think. We'll see...
• A Writer's Reference - Fifth Edition (by Diana Hacker). I've been on the brink of buying this before, so when the opportunity arose.....
• Scientific Integrity - Text and Cases in Responsible Conduct of Research (by Francis L. Macrina). Looked very, very interesting. If this is cool, I might even turn it into a combination course for PhD students on the interrelated subjects of scientific conduct + scientific writing. I'll find a real classy name too, like "How ta insert buzzwords and appear edumacated while kickin' it old-school without screwing $hit up". It's still a working title.
• Biomaterials, artificial organs and tissue engineering (Edited by Larry L. Hench and Julian R. Jones). 'Cause it's a relevant topic for me...
• Introduction To The Principles Of Drug Design And Action, Fourth Edition (Edited by H. John Smith). Another relevant book. No prizes for figuring out some of my professional areas of interest.
• Exploratory Data Analysis With MATLAB (by Wendy L- Martinez and Angel R. Martinez). I've been looking for a reference book like this at a reasonable price, and this is it. A real page-turner, no doubt.