Two-bit binge

My favorite discount book outlet is having an outrageous sale this weekend—four books for a dollar. I stopped by yesterday and picked up an armful; stopped by again today and picked up two armsful; and since my visit today was cruelly cut short by my two restless daughters, I expect to return tomorrow, to linger leisurely and load up.

This bookstore is crammed to the gills with odds and ends, classics to trash. It takes work to comb through the shelves, title by title, snapping up finds until you're just plain worn out. (I've never been able to get through every single shelf in the store in a single visit).

So what did I get today?

• A.S. Byatt, Possession. There were several years during the nineties, roughly coinciding with the workworkwork dot-com era...and the birth of my three children...in which I read just about nothing. Nothing! I used to joke that on a good day, I could manage to find the time to get through the front cover of The New Yorker, but really, it pains me to think back on those days of drought. In an ill-fated attempt to crowbar reading back into my life back then, I borrowed Possession from the library, but could not even find the time to crack its spine before it was due back. Different century, different life: time to try again.
• Mary McCarthy, Birds of America. I read this in college but it dropped out of my library. I think it'll be an interesting reread.
• Michael Tolkin, Under Radar. I haven't decided whether Michael Tolkin is smoke and mirrors about religion, or the real deal. Let's see whether this helps to figure it out.
• Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, The Nanny Diaries. Yep, a Hostess Twinkies read—at half the price of the daily newspaper!
• Brian Hall, The Saskiad. I've been wanting to read Hall's Lewis and Clark book, but haven't got my hands on it yet. (The closest I've gotten to the subject was reading and scoring high school essays on Lewis and Clark for a state academic competition this past year...great fun!...and reading about the botanical bounty from the Lewis and Clark expedition in the various books I seem to be accumulating on Thomas Jefferson, the gardener.) In the meantime, I remembered this noteworthy recommendation of The Saskiad.
• Alison Lurie, The Truth About Lorin Jones. Absurdly, I have a wish list for my trips to this bookstore. At the top of the list is Lurie's War Between the Tates, which I have been longing to reread for some years (my copy somehow disappeared between dimensions some time ago). No sign of Tates yet, but I was happy to pick up an Alison Lurie I haven't yet read.
• Harry Brown, A Walk in the Sun. This was a 1945 edition of the WWII war novel, with an advertisement for war bonds on the back cover.
• Kathi Kamen Goldmark, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You. Another frothy read; this one looks like it'll be a real hoot.
• Dale Peck, Martin and John.  I'm not that interested in Peck's notoriety as a critic, but I am curious about what they say he tries to do here as a fiction writer.
• Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John. I'm the polar opposite of Jamaica Kincaid in temperament, but I've been deeply influenced by her garden writing. (And hurray! Her new garden book is just out.) Her fiction takes you through tough emotional terrain, which I'm not necessarily up to reading all the time, but when I do, it's well worth it.
• Jerry Oppenheimer, Martha Stewart—Just Desserts: The Unauthorized Biography. I used to be indifferent to Martha. Now I'm kinda into her; the downwardly mobile transformation tale is one of my favorite story arcs. Needless to say, Martha Inc. is also on my discount wish list.
• Susan Minot, Evening. I really liked the short story excerpt I read from this a while back in The New Yorker.
• Pierre Franey, The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet. The 1979 Claiborne-Franey The New New York Times Cookbook has been my go-to cookbook for over two decades. I've been meaning to pick this one up for about that long.
  

There's no free lunch, but this is about as close as it gets. I'm vaguely fretful that getting to walk away with a stack of goodies like this for a mere three bucks upsets some obscure law of thermodynamics, for which there will be some future unknown and unwelcome payback. But what am I saying? I'm going back tomorrow.

Comments

[Hannah]

You know, I love Kincaid...ever since we read "Lucy" in my Reading Cultures class during undergrad. I just wish she was a little more prolific.

Sounds like a great deal, all-in-all. Anytime you can get four readable books for $1, you should!

[avril]

Oh, the envy! We have some great bookstores here in Asheville but they never have sales like these. From time to time, I take that vow (you know the one....) to not buy any more books until I've finished those towering by my bed. Never works, especially when it comes to gardening books, old books, cookbooks....

[Chan S.]

Hannah - Thanks for the encouragement! And I am looking forward to Annie John. Kincaid's work is so concentrated and intense that I can almost understand why there's not more of it...I can't help but think it must take a lot out of a writer that writes like she does.

Avril - What vow? What bedside stacks? I'm happily resigned to running a permanent read/bought deficit. After all, there are worse vices (or so I tell myself).