{"id":27395,"date":"2020-12-29T10:13:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T16:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=27395"},"modified":"2020-12-29T10:13:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T16:13:57","slug":"good-book-hunting-december-28-2020-gift-card-redemptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/29\/good-book-hunting-december-28-2020-gift-card-redemptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Book Hunting, December 28, 2020: Gift Card Redemptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/26\/the-christmas-gifts-of-nogglestead-only-slightly-snarked\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">gift certificates for a record shop and antique mall<\/a>, I also received, along with the each in the family, an ABC Books gift card.  So we headed out yesterday to spend them along with a Barnes and Noble gift card the youngest had and a Visa Gift card for $25 of some unknown provenance that I found in my gift cards.<\/p>\n<p>So we stopped at ABC Books and &#8220;talked with Val&#8221; for a little bit and then Vintage Stock to pick up a couple albums I spotted whilst Christmas shopping and Barnes and Noble.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the books I got:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/gbh174.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The haul includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Sid Meier&#8217;s Memoir!<\/em>.  I got this at Barnes and Noble, not off the discount rack, but sales and remnants of gift cards (my youngest gifted me the remaining $3 on his after he bought a <em>toy<\/em>&#8211;to the boys, any place that sells toys or candy means the gift card will go at least 50% to the candy or toys).  Given how much of my life has been given over to Sid Meier&#8217;s games&#8211;starting perhaps with Gunship on the Commodore 64 and up to Civ IV&#8211;which <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/04\/short-memories\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">I still play too much<\/a>&#8211;and onto Civ VI and Sid Meier&#8217;s Pirates, which I just installed on my Windows 10 box, and it runs, but I haven&#8217;t spent much time on it because, well, Civ IV&#8211;I thought I might as well buy his book as well.  It cost a little over $10 after old gift cards were applied.<\/li>\n<li><em>Like the Pieces of Driftwood<\/em>, a short collection of poems by Tom Francis.  So I can keep my poetry reading going during football games&#8211;and short collections of poetry are less expensive than art monographs at ABC Books. <\/li>\n<li><em>Descartes in 90 Minutes<\/em> by Paul Strathern, a short bit on Descartes.<\/li>\n<li><em>The Great Optimist and Other Essays<\/em> by Leigh Mitchell Hodges, a 1908 collection that was misshelved in the Poetry section.  To be honest, I didn&#8217;t look too closely at the contents.  I figured in 1908, it would not be too modern, and I was kind of shopping on price.<\/li>\n<li><em>Pamela<\/em> by Samuel Richardson, an early epistolary novel mentioned in <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/on-the-english-novel-by-timothy-spurgin-2006\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The English Novel<\/em> audio course<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>The Complete Poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar<\/em>.  Dunbar was an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">19th century poet<\/a> whom I read about somewhere in the past.  I bookmarked his Wikipedia entry a long time ago in case I wanted to write an essay about him.  Maybe after reading this book.  It&#8217;s a nice edition from 1970 with mylar over the dustjacket and a left-handed inscription to Ann Elizabeth Quinn from Granpa(?) Lucas.  The book was priced $18.95, so I put it back when I first spotted it on one of my Christmas shopping trips.  However, this time, with the power of a Christmas present gift card, <em>I bought it.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, gentle reader, I want you to understand that I behaved myself pretty well this trip.  I actually put a couple books back.  For example, because I had a gift card and because the nice leather editions of books are often 25% or 50% off at ABC Books, I took a look at them first.  I spotted Orwell&#8217;s <em>Homage to Catalonia<\/em>, mentioned in the audio course <em><a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/12\/on-the-world-of-george-orwell-by-michael-sheldon-2010\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">The World of George Orwell<\/em><\/a>, I picked it up.  It was priced at $275.  Even with a quarter off (&#8220;Honey!  I saved $70 when I talked to Val!&#8221;), I could not buy it.  It&#8217;s unusual, but I also put back a $10 boxed hardback copy of <em>Tom Jones<\/em>, also mentioned in <em>The English Novel<\/em> (in the same lecture as <em>Pamela<\/em>, if I recall) because I figured I should only buy them one at a time and maybe, I don&#8217;t know, <em>read the books I already have before buying another<\/em>.  Besides, by the time I might have gotten to <em>Tom Jones<\/em>, I might have found some other bit of classical literature on my shelves already.  Especially if <em>Pamela<\/em> disappears into my to-read bookshelves for years.  Which might happen here in a minute when I take it off of my desk.<\/p>\n<p>So look at me: I <em>put some books back<\/em> which should somehow represent virtue.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if I have mentioned this, but I have a definite pattern of browsing at ABC Books: I look at the local interest, I go down the aisle to the martial arts books, might stop by the art monographs down the same aisle, and then I go to the poetry and philosophy section (which are right next to each other), and then down that aisle to the classical literature (a new stop after listening to <em>The English Novel<\/em>.  If there&#8217;s an author in the front of the shop, I&#8217;ll pick up one of that author&#8217;s books, and then I will be done.  So I do all this damage to my poor bookshelves in only two aisles, essentially.<\/p>\n<p>At any rate, I am excited to get started on these books.  I predict I will read probably 2\/3 of them in 2021 if I don&#8217;t lose them.  Which I very well might.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to gift certificates for a record shop and antique mall, I also received, along with the each in the family, an ABC Books gift card. So we headed out yesterday to spend them along with a Barnes and Noble gift card the youngest had and a Visa Gift card for $25 of some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27398,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395\/revisions\/27398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}