It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, but down here in Southwest Missouri, we only get to four or five book fairs a year, which is a good thing, as my bookshelves are collapsing under the weight of the books I own and will never actually read.
Instead of the twice-a-year Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book fair or the Friends of the Christian County book fair, this weekend we traveled 41.7 miles to the Friends of the Polk County Library book fair in Bolivar (pronounced as a rhyme to Tolliver, not like the Liberator).
Here’s what I got:
It includes:
- A Matt Helm book, The Ambushers.
- A Shell Scott novel, Kill Me Tomorrow by Richard Prather.
- Four books from a fellow named Ross Thomas, who I hope I like since I suddenly have four of them.
- Two later Mack Bolan titles, Point Position and Vengeance.
- A Robert Heinlein book, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.
- The Three Legions, a historical novel of Roman times.
- An honest-to-goodness Horatio Alger story published in 1909.
- An omnibus of three of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels.
- An Ellery Queen paperback.
- Silent Prey by John Sandford, an early Lucas Davenport title.
- A book on how to play Mah Jongg, a book on how to build and fly kites, and a book on upholstering.
- A book on the Seinfeld television program, of which I might not have ever watched a complete episode.
And so on.
That’s 30 books for me, a couple cookbooks and religious themed books for my beautiful wife (one of which is a duplicate, but I did not mention this because her books are her books and my books are mine), and a couple of books for the children. I gave the Friends of the Polk County Library a double sawbuck to help them out, overpaying according to their pricing guides, but I could help out some, so I did.
Additionally, I have an application to join, so I’ll send some money along with that to add to my collection of Friends of the Library memberships.
I look forward, sort of, to the Christian County and Springfield-Greene County book fairs in the next couple of weeks, but I am really running out of space for books, again. I need to cut this out.
Hey, wait a minute, I still own that house up in Old Trees, Missouri, that has a lot of rooms for bookshelves….
Wow… “The Wisdom of Insecurity”…! It might be fun to go back and read that… 30(?) years later, and see what kind of fights I can pick with my young punk self.
Always the mostest funnest fights.
Wow, you are well read.
Don’t spoil the ending for me. Although it might be thirty years before I get to this particular, albeit slender, volume.