Well, it wasn’t that good in terms of purchases, but perhaps that’s actually better for me. James R. Wilder was coming for an early book signing–both in that he’s usually here in December and because the signing was at 10:00am. I took my oldest, who wanted to stop for lunch and go to the Ross department stores in town (both of them) as well. But with a belly full of sushi and vegetable egg fu yung, he kinda demurred on going to both locations of the department store–especially as the southeast location was a zoo. But we stopped by Relics, briefly, in a search for a gift for my mother-in-law’s upcoming birthday (not for my beautiful wife, whose birthday is a week later–I have her covered pretty well, no Facebook-advertised catchkes involved).
Here’s what I got:
I got:
- The new Wilder book, River City P.I., which takes place far later than the other Harbison mysteries and focuses on a relative of Chet Harbison, the main character of the other books, who becomes a part-time investigator in Cape Girardeau. I managed to only talk to Wilder for a couple of minutes, and I sold him a copy of John Donnelly’s Gold. I’m pretty sure my best sales tactic is to jam authors whose books I buy at ABC Books–I think Mr. C. also bought a copy. Also, he mentioned his cover guy does the covers and layouts for his books for $400, which hopefully means that he’s selling hundreds of copies of each book. Good on ‘im.
- The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Yes, gentle reader, I have bought this book from ABC Books and have already read it. But this is a really pretty book, only $7.95 for a hard copy with a pretty dust jacket. So I will read it again.
At Relics, I stopped at the new record booth with the jazz records I found earlier this month, and I looked through the last part of the alphabet. I got Tell It Like It Is by Stacy Rowles with Jimmy Rowles. It’s a woman playing trumpet. I cannot get in trouble buying an album like that. I didn’t find the gift I was looking for, so I might be back or prowling other venues this week.
So, thirty bucks and another forty for a buffet lunch. And some of the rapidly diminishing time with my oldest son. Which is worth more, even though I am unlikely to remember this particular excursion.
