There actually is a thread that runs through the last two posts. It doesn't tie them together, it's just there, hidden, noticeable only by me. The book I quoted, Dakini's Warm Breath, was a relatively recent purchase but I had seen it years ago in Eslite, a local chain of bookstores, when they carried a respectable selection of English language books. However, it was always shrinkwrapped so I couldn't sample it to see if it was any good. By the time I thought I might buy it anyway, it had disappeared from the shelves.

Part of how society has changed and passed me by and is no longer something familiar might be exemplified by changes in Eslite. I used to spend hours there. If bored, going there was always an option to pass time. It's different now; barely an afterthought as an option to pass time and more often than not passed as an option. For one, with only a mention of the decimation of its previously massive CD/DVD section, the English language religion and spirituality section has been severely trimmed down from what they had before. They used to have wall-sized bookshelves full, but now just a few shelves on a much smaller bookshelf. This applies to all of Taipei and life. What I'd be attracted to and familiar with isn't in demand anymore. What does exist now is boring to me.

Back to the book, perhaps it was strange that it reappeared on the shelves this year amid all the downsizing of shiny things that get my attention. I didn't know it before, but now I consider it an essential read for my learning and I'm going through it for the third time already. I wouldn't argue against the suggestion that it reappeared only when I was ready for it. When it reappeared, I didn't hesitate again, I bought it that day. My hesitation before was partly measured doubt about shelling out for a book I couldn't sample, but it may have also been partly intuition that I wasn't ready for it. After all, this time I still couldn't sample it and shelled out right away.

And at over US$30, it's not a cheap book, especially one with so many typos in it. I've probably mentioned before that a side effect of my prior job as a copy editor is that I, for most part, can't not see mistakes anymore. It's like a sub-conscious habit to look for them now. I don't think I ever noticed books having mistakes before, but now I often find at least one typo per book and it always makes my eyes roll (that's also probably a side-effect of copy editing). This book had 5 or 6 mistakes, 5 of them in a 30 page stretch, so it's possible that section was (not) edited by one person. My favorite mistake was "iconography" misspelled as "ironography". Someone really needs to develop a system of categorizing irony.