Hello, fellow Salon Members! I hope everyone has had a loverly week!
This week will be a slightly pitiful Salon for me. My roommate and I have decided to move, so we have been doing lots of running around, looking at the new place, trying to negotiate an early lease break with our current location, etc. That, and with the Olympics still going strong and my feeling slightly under the weather all week has combined into an extraordinarily light reading week for me!
My highlight for the week was the acquisition of May Sarton's first book of poetry, Encounter in April. I have been looking for this book for years, and finally found a copy on eBay (for what I consider a ridiculously low price). I also reread Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are after I discovered a copy hiding on the upper shelf of my closet. And rounding out my reading this week was a collection of "true" ghost stories that my friend S brought back for B & me from her vacation up north. Truly, not as productive a week as I had hoped.
Wednesday, I am flying off to Florida for a couple of days of relaxing and visiting with my family. I have four books packed for the trip (Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the second Dresden Files book, and the first two books in Katherine Kerr's Deverry series). I'm hoping that these will hold me over while I'm down there.
On another note, our local library had their annual Friends of the Library sale, where they sell any paperbacks for 25¢ and hardcovers for 50¢. Would you believe that I couldn't find a single book that I wanted to buy? This sale is a huge event around here. I arrived roughly 5 minutes after it opened, and there were people already walking out with boxes and bags chockablock with books. I'm sure everything that I would have wanted to read was walking out of that sale with these new owners. My friend S (who did find a bag full of books herself) and I decided to wander downstairs to the library's bookstore and see what we could find (most paperbacks are 50¢ and hardcovers and trade paperbacks are $1). Well, all was not lost for the day, as I left with Jane Yolen's Briar Rose, Susan Minot's Evening, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, a first edition of Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal] (I really enjoyed the film version, Notes on a Scandal, with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett so I thought I'd give the book a try) and finally, a 1940's edition of Hugh Lofting's The Story of Doctor Dolittle. The Doctor Dolittle is a little worse for wear but not too bad given it's age, and the Heller is a withdraw from the library, but the others look like they were just pulled from the bookshelves at B&N and taken to the library for sale.
Well, that's about all for me this week. I'll be visiting some other Salon's this afternoon. I hope everyone has a plentiful reading week!
3 comments:
It's a long time since I read any of the Dolittle books. They were pulled from some libraries in the UK for what were seen as racist comments. But, I always taught them when looking at the history of Children's Literature because they had an interesting genesis based on Lofting's service as a vet in the First World War and his expressed wish in letters home that the horses could speak so that he would have a better understanding of their wounds and the pain that they were in. I hope you enjoy your find.
You're moving away from the prime library visiting location? Good with searching for a new apartment...I hope that it isn't too grueling.
It also seems that everyone I know is jetting off to Florida for vacation. Except me. When my time for vacation comes in Oct (25 to 03 Nov) I'm heading out west to see New Mexico...well, more specifically my sister...I can't wait. I really need a vacay! I hope that yours is filled with much fun and sun!
Ann - Thank you again for giving me some insight into a book! I'm sometimes ashamed by how little I actually know about the authors or books that I am reading. Just goes to show that you can always learn something new! I had not known about the racist comments, and did some further research and discovered that the books had had some sections changed or removed from future printings due to these comments. I think the copy that I have was published before those changes were made. Now I want to go find a current printing and compare them to see what changes were made.
Gail- Yes, I know it is a shame that I am moving away from my beautiful new library, but I'll only be about a 10-15 minute drive, so all is not lost. Our new digs will be about twice as much space as we have now, and it will be cheaper rent, so the money I save in rent I can spend in driving back to the library!
And I'm really looking forward to my vacation as well. This one will be a short one (only 2 full days in FL) but then 2 weeks later, I'm heading back down to FL for a weeks stay at Walt Disney World! I know I probably won't be getting much reading done that week.
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