The Elegance of the Hedgehog

For Christmas the BF bought me the Kobo e-reader.  While I was very interested in this new technology I was a little hesitant about making the switch from good old fashioned paper books.  I love the smell of books and the feel of turning pages, I love bookmarks and looking at books on my bookshelf (even if I have no intention of ever reading them again).  I must say after reading two books on my Kobo I am a fan.  There is no glare on the screen, the pages almost look like paper and it always remembers exactly where you left off.  I also reaaaaalllly love the portabilty of it.  I can't wait to go on  vacation and read my up to 1000 books poolside and not have to worry about lugging books.   I am also looking forward to getting into some of the 100 classic books that came on it, you know reading all those books that I was probably supposed to be forced to read in my high school days.

With that said I have still been purchasing real books.  Some books are just so beautiful and the Kobo does not do them justice.  I bought Jay-Z's "Decoded" and "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" by David Sedaris in good old fashioned form because of their beautiful illustrations and photographs.

 So I think my plan will be this...buy any  book that doesn't have an exceptionally beautiful cover or illustrations for my e-reader and all those beautiful books in the good old fashion way so they can sit pretty on my shelf or coffee table.

My latest purchase has been "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery.  I really haven't heard anything about this book.  Just a good old fashioned case of judging a book by it's cover.  I like the look if it and I liked the title.

Here's what Amazon has to say about it:

"We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who, for their part, are barely aware of her existence. Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. 

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us."

Sounds interesting to me.  Has anyone out there in Bloggy-land read this one?  Let me know whatcha thought!