July blogathon #16: Boooooooooks....
See, here's the thing - I am positively dangerous when let loose amongst bookshelves.
Take this morning. A local used book store had sent both rdeck and me little "happy birthday" cards, come-in-and-get-$5-off-your-purchases-because-it's-your-birthday kind of thing. In addition to this, we hauled in two large bags full of other books, stuff we wanted to sell or otherwise divest ourselves of. So while the bookstore buyer sifted through our offerings the two of us went off into the stacks to have a look around.
Himself came away with a handful of stuff, mostly mystery novels in paperback, stuff like that.
My haul:
- Two Ursula le Guin hardcovers, one essays, one stories - in VERY good condition, with plastic slipcovers over the dustjackets
- Two books on the building on the transcontinental railway in the States back in the the 1800's (Reference material, okay? There is a potential New Secret Project brewing...)
- One myth and legend encyclopedia
- One illustrated book on Chinese dragon lore
- One (hardcover) book billed as an autobiography of a person with multiple personality disorder
Our brought-in books were culled, a certain number of them selected, and the bookstore offered us $12 in cash or $24 in trade. So with the $24 in trade plus the $5 + $5 from our two "birthday" cards, that came to $34 off our total purchase price.
We still walked out with little change from $50.
I adore the back shelves of used book stores. The kind of place where you find books that went out of print twenty years ago and are probably utterly outdated today but ohmygod some of them were beautiful and some of them deal with the sort of material where cutting-edge is really not all that important - and there are some TREASURES to be found back there. And we're blessed with two fabulous shops here in town, across the street from one another, miles and miles of shelving and THOUSANDS of books and it's just heaven, that's what it is.
Happy (belated) birthday toooooo meeeeee - and guess what I got? My favourite present. Books.
Take this morning. A local used book store had sent both rdeck and me little "happy birthday" cards, come-in-and-get-$5-off-your-purchases-because-it's-your-birthday kind of thing. In addition to this, we hauled in two large bags full of other books, stuff we wanted to sell or otherwise divest ourselves of. So while the bookstore buyer sifted through our offerings the two of us went off into the stacks to have a look around.
Himself came away with a handful of stuff, mostly mystery novels in paperback, stuff like that.
My haul:
- Two Ursula le Guin hardcovers, one essays, one stories - in VERY good condition, with plastic slipcovers over the dustjackets
- Two books on the building on the transcontinental railway in the States back in the the 1800's (Reference material, okay? There is a potential New Secret Project brewing...)
- One myth and legend encyclopedia
- One illustrated book on Chinese dragon lore
- One (hardcover) book billed as an autobiography of a person with multiple personality disorder
Our brought-in books were culled, a certain number of them selected, and the bookstore offered us $12 in cash or $24 in trade. So with the $24 in trade plus the $5 + $5 from our two "birthday" cards, that came to $34 off our total purchase price.
We still walked out with little change from $50.
I adore the back shelves of used book stores. The kind of place where you find books that went out of print twenty years ago and are probably utterly outdated today but ohmygod some of them were beautiful and some of them deal with the sort of material where cutting-edge is really not all that important - and there are some TREASURES to be found back there. And we're blessed with two fabulous shops here in town, across the street from one another, miles and miles of shelving and THOUSANDS of books and it's just heaven, that's what it is.
Happy (belated) birthday toooooo meeeeee - and guess what I got? My favourite present. Books.