Good Book Hunting: August 25, 2007

The Ethical Society of St. Louis had a books, music, and video sale today, and we happened to find it. Hardbacks were $1 each or 3 for $2; paperbacks were $.50 or 5 for $2; cassettes were .50 each or something; CDs were $1 each; and albums were $.25 or 5 for $1. Which explains the carnage that was to occur:

I got:

  • The Running Man, the movie tie-in paperback.
  • How to Take a Trick a Day with Bisquick because I’m interested in learning more about prostitutes and pastries, and Through-the-Years Cookbook because the two were a quarter together.
  • The Fall by Camus because I have been buying Camus lately, and it has become a compulsion.
  • St. Louis: A Concise History by William Barnaby Faherty, S.J., and Gateway Guidebook because I live here and might as well learn some trivia about it.
  • Yo, Millard Fillmore by Will Cleveland and Mark Alvarez because I’d like to bone up on my presidential trivia.
  • Hoaxes! Dupes, Dodges & Other Dastardly Deceptions by Gordon Stein and Marie J. MacNee because these sorts of compilations serve as good idea sources for essays and the stories I used to tell my officemate when we’d stare out the window.
  • Be Happy!, a 1972 hardback collection of happy little thoughts simply because the book has pictures like this:

    Someone being happy

    and

    Someone else being happy

    Brother, any review of those pictures make me instantly happier. I mean, if my sideburns ever show up in my silhouette, shoot me with a silver bullet.

  • Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story by Carlos Baker because I think Hemingway’s writing is the bomb and I think his biography is riveting; let’s see how this guy does with it.
  • Reagan’s America by Garry Willis and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by Peggy Noonan because I’ve suddenly been seized with the urge to read more about those halycon days. I don’t think the Noonan book deals with that time period, but.
  • The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America by Philip K. Howard because Walter Olson shouldn’t have all the fun.
  • 100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda because I’ll soon need to wash the voice of Sylvia Plath out of my head.
  • The Braille Woods, a chapbook by Ann Townsend, simply because I could. Chapbooks are good as they give small doses of an individual poet.
  • Dave Barry Does Japan because I’ll need to see if he’s still as funny as I remember.
  • Strange But True: Mysterious and Bizarre People by Thomas Slemen because (see Hoaxes! above).
  • Digital Darwinism by Evan I. Schwartz because I think I’ll have some time for it in 2009.

Hmmm, I seem to have misplaced Poems of Friends, which I picked up and intended to buy.

For audio, I got:

  • My first Zamfir!
  • Timeless by local jazz singer Anita Rosemond
  • Pure by Hayley Westenra because she’s hot.
  • An Adam Sandler comedy cassette.
  • The Grease Soundtrack, obviously.
  • A record of T.S. Eliot reading his poetry, including “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
  • The Sinatra Christmas album.
  • And misc big band stuff, including a 10 record set.

Not a bad haul considering my collection and Heather’s stack cost a total of $16.50.

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