Well not quite. I'm also a literate-person wannabe. Literary sophistication is great and all for my own edification but is also, for somebody in academia, practical and even necessary. All which flourish self-perpetuates and so does academia: talking about girl vs guy issues will not get you far but discussing the hermeneutical implications of genderized epistmological styles will get you published. So there's my objective reason.

In any case, after reading a concise yet convincing review over at The S-Spot, I decided to pick up "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon (in the dignified matte red paperback version). Unfortunately, since I was at temptation island, I let my nerdy side run smack into my frugal side and came away with a few more items.

• The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene - Fairly famous physicist out to be the next Stephen Hawking in terms of vernacularizing the esoteric ideas of physics. It's about superstrings and such so I would assume it deals more with high energy theory/cosmology/brane theory.
• And what better way to complement the grotesquely macroscopic "Elegant Universe" than with the comparably microscopic "Music Room". Sounds like a happy book, about a man coping with the suicide of his brother.
• And what better way to practice the cultural pomposity required of me upon completing my PhD (that's Dr. Ma...what? Stop laughing! Not my fault I sound like Dr. Mom!) than with a guide to wine. I am an idiot, so what better guide than the complete idiot's guide to wine? Yes, I know what you're thinking: why would you buy a guide written by a "complete idiot"? Well because then it's at my level you dum dum. I say, your bouquet in your wine is a bit over toasted with wood and too much peach like a Gewurtztraminer that thinks it's a Riesling. Ho ho ho. Take that you affentitten!