6/11 - My small Lawrence Block collection. I'm lacking 4 books from the series--they're 11 in all. And there are actually 2 short stories, but one is only available in audio (and they don't sell them here) and the other can only be found in a short story collection book (which they also don't sell here)
On my 17th birthday, my friend J gave me The Burglar in the Rye as a gift. Because I read at a glacial pace, I was only able to read it when I was already 19. Looking back, I really should've read it right away, so it might've been easier for me to collect the series. You see, after reading it, I liked it a lot, and so decided that I wanted to collect the whole series, there are only 11 books anyway. Unfortunately, Lawrence Block isn't that famous a writer here, and I think that after the first wave of importing his books, the book stores have stopped. Hence, I was only able to easily buy in the book store, 2 books (The Burglar in the Library, The Burglar who Thought He was Bogart). The rest of these, I found only from concentrating real hard in the small Used Books Store at the train station*. I'm happy because I only got them for P50 each (because you know, they're old), but I kind of wish there was an easier way to find them. Actually, it's taken me 6 years to find these 3 books (Burglars Can't Be Choosers, The Burglar in the Closet, The Burglar who Traded Ted Williams), but I'm optimistic that the other 4 (The Burglar who Liked to Quote Kipling, The Burglar who Studied Spinoza, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, The Burglar on the Prowl) will turn up in a book store somewhere, or that maybe one of you would be kind enough to buy them in Amazon.com for me. :)
The main character of this series, Bernie Rhodenbarr, is (obviously) a burglar. But what's great about him is that he's not a "bad guy". Although he does steal things for a living, he's actually a nice guy who defends the innocent, and is sort of a gentleman. He takes women out on proper dates and stuff. Also, he has a day job--he owns a book store. So really, the burglar thing is more of a personality quirk that you kind of forgive him for.
As for the mysteries, the books (all of them so far) actually follow a pretty consistent formula--Bernie plans on robbing a certain place (an apartment, usually) but when he gets there, the item of interest is already gone, and there is a dead body in its place. Naturally, the police will assume that he's the murderer, since he was at the crime scene, and so he has to do some sleuthing to prove his innocence. It's basically the same plot in every book, but what makes it fun to read are the real life drama Bernie has, separate from the sleuthing and burglary, and well, I'm just a sucker for mysteries.
P.S. These were the books in question that I was looking for when I found the slippers I mentioned in Day 119.
*It's MBC Books at the Ayala MRT station.
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