A dear friend of SFist's is contemplating a career change to library science, and we couldn't be happier for him. How nice it would be to have a "connection" to move us up the online reserve list. Alas, his library talents will probably end up being utilized by the San Francisco Unified District of Schools. Now, if only we could get a pal at one of our fine local independent bookstores....

SFist Rita was going to pick up the book Blowing my Cover by Lindsay Moran, which is supposed to be a hilarious memoir about working as a CIA undercover agent in Eastern Europe, but the main SF library was forced to close early yesterday because their plumbing pipes blew out, so she couldn't pick up her reserved copy! There were a large number of dismayed readers milling about outside and rattling the doors in vain.

SFist Jackson is reading Exile and Kingdom, a collection of six short stories by his favorite Algerian philosopher Albert Camus (Jacques Derrida is a distant second). The stories are haunting character studies that delve into the interaction of French and Arab, owner and worker in postwar Algeria and France. While Sartre is more highly regarded philosophically, SFist Jackson thinks that Camus is definitely the better writer (remind anyone of Marx and Engels?), and Camus doesn't come with the baggage of having supporting Stalin for 'the sake of the party.' In fact, he was probably assassinated by Brezhnev's cronies for speaking out against the totalitarianism in Russia.

SFist Emily is reading, I Bought Andy Warhol by Richard Polsky, a San Franciso art dealer. It's an easy read with lots of juicy details about art world eccentrics, the Warhol empire, and the artist himself.