Good Book Hunting, Saturday, September 14, 2024: The Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library

On Saturday, we went to a cross country meet in Lebanon, about an hour or so northeast of Springfield off of I-44. You know what was also just off of Interstate 44? Half-price day at the book sale. So my beautiful wife and I went; the youngest remained in Lebanon with his team, and the oldest was still at home, so it was a date. But I won’t make that mistake again, as she bought a lot of heavy things, and the two trips I would normally make to the car carrying large boxes of book turned into four.

The stacks to the right represent the cookbooks and magazines that my wife bought along with her five LPs. Somehow she managed to spend about a quarter of what I did.

But I got these books:

• Nine early editions of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s works, including The King’s Henchman (1927), Fatal Interview (Third printing 1931), Renascence (1921, ex-library from Hawthorne College in New Hampshire), A Few Figs from Thistles (1922), Make Bright the Arrows (1940, ex library from the Dallas County library), The Buck in the Snow (Stated First Edition 1928), The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (Stated First Edition 1928), Huntsman, What Quarry (Stated First Edition 1939), and Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire’s poems which I read in 2015–I had not realized Millay along with George Dillon translated an edition in 1936. I owned most of these already, but I’m not sure which I own which are first editions–and I just read Mine the Harvest earlier this year for the Winter Reading Challenge and The King’s Henchman 2007. Having only two book reports for Millay books on the blog means I am due to read these again. All but one of them were in the old and collectible books section, which means I paid a half of a premium on them, but I’d rather spend that money than have them ground into cat litter. It also likely means that these books all came from one person’s collection donated to the sale, and I have to wonder who that person is or was.
• Harvest of Gold by Ernest R. Miller, a collection of pieces of poems and whatnot he’d clipped.
• Who Would Win? A Guide to Great Imaginary Showdowns presented by Justin Heimberg. Things like Pac Man vs Cookie Monster, etc. Looks like fun.
• Makers of the Modern Theological Mind: Gerhard von Rad by James L. Crenshaw. I have a number of others in the series which I bought at ABC Books and/or other sales. I was pleased to see I did not have this one. If I had, though, it would be the kind of thing that would pass muster on the church free book cart.
• Dust and Stardust by Edna Becker, a 1955 collection of poems by…. someone? She had numerous other books listed. This might have been self-published back when that was expensive.
• One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese: Love nad the Turning Year by Kenneth Rexroth.
• Unbeknownst by Julie Hanson, poems.
• A Night Like No Other by Chip Davis, a Mannheim Steamroller-branded Christmas novel. Man, I have seeded my library with so many Christmas novels to ensure I can find at least one in December that perhaps I should start reading them now.
• Honey and Salt, poems by Carl Sandburg (1963). Makes me think I need to order more mylar, as I’d like to cover this book.
• Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry. Oh, yeah, I am going to like this one–I liked A Pound of Paper earlier this year which was about a book seller finding books in odd places.
• Hot X: Algebra Exposed by Danica McKellar. I don’t often say it about books, but Pretty Woman on Cover. This is Winnie Cooper’s math book. Well, the intro to higher math book. Which I might read soon–when my boys started taking algebra in middle school, I bought a couple of primers to refresh my understanding which I’ve since lost in the stacks. But this will be on top, likely.
• Zen Interiors by Vinny Lee. Definitely not my style–I’m browsing a look book from the 1970s which really taps into what I like, and this is not that. But I got it anyway.
• Living in Wyoming: Settling for More by Susan Anderson/photos by Zbigniew Bzdak.

That’s, what, 21 books? My wife pointed out that she bought more. But the records are another story (and another post).

I also picked up the following audio courses to store in my closet until I take another car trip:

• Rediscovering Shakespeare: The Tragedies
• Existentialism and the Meaning of Life (if you think there is a meaning of life, you might be doing your Existentialism incorrectly)
• Famous Romans
• Turning Points in Modern History
• Rome and the Barbarians
• The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
• An Introduction to Greek Philosophy (only part 1 of a 2 part set)

Every time I buy cool sounding courses, I want to commute. But we’re currently fewer vehicles than drivers at Nogglestead again, so it’s not as though I would get to go anywhere anyway.

So I spent…. Well, probably $80 on books and audio courses, which is not bad given the Millay collection. Although I wish I had kept a running total as I went because that seems a little high.

But good album hunting…. that is another story.