Birthday books have arrived.

For my birthday, my friend Andrea gave me a gift certificate from Barnes & Noble, specifically instructing me to "get something 'cupcake'" since I do a lot of theory-reading. So, with my gift certificate, I got The Bad Girl's 2004 desk calendar. However, I couldn't resist also getting a book I've been wanting to read ever since I heard a riveting NPR interview with its author, Aidan Hartley: The Zanzibar Chest. It's a memoir of Hartley's life in Africa. He says a lot about the devastating effects of colonialism.