if I had a million dollars...

...I would buy a whole lotta books.

While perambulating through Borders on Saturday evening, I was suddenly struck with a new understanding of why people spend hours reading in a bookstore rather than make a selection, purchase their tome, and read at home: they can't afford the price of books these days. There's much public grousing about the ever-rising cost of movies, but they're a bargain compared to a book. Even paperbacks are costlier than a movie ticket. Granted, if comparing satisfaction/minute/cost, clearly a book's a better deal. But for those of us that scramble through books like Wal-Mart shoppers at 5 a.m. on Black Friday, reading becomes an awfully costly enterprise.