Good Book Hunting: September 24, 2012

On Saturday, my beautiful wife and children attended a birthday party just a couple doors down from Hooked on Books.

I’M ONLY A MAN!

I did most of my visiting to the sale books out in front and in the little room off of the back, coming away with:

• Top of the Heap by A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner). On top, get it? Unfortunately, I already own it in another format, but I might keep the paperback, too, for its cover art and because I am a hoarder.
   
• Three more M*A*S*H Goes To…. books. I have a number of them, and I pick them up when I see them. I hope I like them or I run into the last millionaire M*A*S*H fan in the world who must own these books. Because I have like six in the series.
   
• Two ABLE Team books by Gold Eagle, my first in this pulp series.
   
• Heathcliff at Home.
   
• Reno Rendezvous by Leslie Ford. Hooked on Books had two books by this author, but I was reluctant to spend the extra quarter on an untested series. Unlike my profligacy in spending seventy-five cents on M*A*S*H novels.
   
• HUD, a novel by Larry McMurty. This is the movie tie-in version with Paul Newman on the front.
   
• Heroes and Outlaws of the Old West, a short collection of pieces about characters in the old West. An idea book if I ever get back into that writing thing.
   
• The Hundred Years War, a history of that conflict. I spent $5 on this one, as it was not a sale item.
   
• Aux Arcs: Black and White Photography of the Ozarks Region, a collection of photographs to browse during a football game. I paid $5 for this one, too, and frankly was just bowing to the inevitable. It is available at all the local bookstores and book fairs. I was destined to own it, and now I do.

It’s like $13, which is less than I would have spent at a grocery store in the same amount of time.

The big book fairs are next month, so I had to warm up my book-buying muscles.

The best part of the trip was the exchange at the cash register:

Me: Does the history book redeem me for purchasing all that pulp?
Clerk: I don’t care what you buy.
Me: You’re saying, “No.”