This has been a fun-filled week with books. Thursday my friend and I went browsing at the Friends-of-The-Library sale at the local library. She ended up with a bigger haul than me but it was all good fun. I was trying to curb myself! I also got a sweet little book bag out of the deal.
The same day we browsed Books-A-Million, where I found extremely reasonably priced classics and a few other goodies.
My fiances job at Subway is offering a charity right now, where they are trying to sell a small amount of books for the American Heart Association. I picked up three books for five dollars. Truthfully most of their stuff didn't interest me...I ended up getting one of the books for him because he said he wanted to read it, and the others looked pretty good.
Over all I received some new, some used, replaced one (see below), and also picked up some new bookmarks.
Friends of the Library Sale
I struck some gold here. I found two Janet Evanovich older style romances. I try to pick these up when I run into them. Have about three before this. Both look cute and I dig her easy-going writing style. They seem like they'll be a breeze to sail through. Naughty Neighbor and Hero at Large.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens will be an experiment. Honestly I should stop buying his books until I knew whether I dig his stuff or not. I'm getting a small collection going of his classics. His plots and covers draw me like a moth to flame though. This is a pretty big novel, and I've heard it can get complicated. It won't be the first I start out with trying him, think that will be Great Expectations. The synopsis for Bleak House says this, which may be promising: "Bleak House, in its
atmosphere, symbolism and magnificent bleak comedy, is often regarded as
the best of Dickens. A 'great Victorian novel', it is so inventive in
its competing plots and styles that it eludes interpretation." Hmmm, we shall see.Found Tom Sawyer. The Walmart mark on it really annoys me. I thought it was a sticker but NO, it's printed on to look like a sticker and I didn't notice this until I got home. I'm almost tempted to cover over it with a real sticker of something random. A shame too as I dug the cover otherwise. Now that I have this and Hucklberry, will have decent Twain stash when going through another classics phase.
The top one at the right is hard to see in this picture apparently. It's called Sleeping with Ward Cleaver and seemed adorable. Easy buy.
The Truth about Sixth Grade...well, for odd reasons I had to snatch this one up. I used to read the older books in this series and wish to recollect them, but can never find them. This is in the same series but one I didn't get to read.
Also found a cozy mystery by Joan Hess called the Goodbye Body. Looks fun for a rainy day. Looks like it's the fifteen in a mystery series I haven't read any of, and I usually dislike reading out of order, but oh well.
These books were ridiculously cheap. They're typically 25 cents, 50 cents, or a dollar. In addition to this, it was back to school special, so you take another 50% off THAT. My friend also bought a bag of books (six total, mixed surprise bag) at the counter for $5.00. She kindly gave me the book tote bag, which I was gushing over. Honestly I need to quit collecting these book tote bags, but this was too cute to resist. She already had one from the last time she bought the bagged book collection. Ended up being a few she didn't care for, but she found Insomnia by King and a really cool looking Urban Fantasy type thriller. And really, isn't this bag just adorable??Books-A-Million Bookstore
I know a lot of people in different states don't know what Books-A-Million is, and I keep forgetting about that. It's a large bookstore chain in the south, especially Florida. There's one in pretty much every city here. For the most part they are bookstore pricey, but they do have some cheaper deals as well, which we browsed.
They have shelves of rereleased classics for CHEAP. I was tempted to buy much more than two but have to curb the spending urge! I have been wanting to read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for awhile now, it's an intriguing story and I love the Universal Monster classics and what inspired them. Slowly getting there with the collection - picked up Dracula and Frankenstein earlier this year.
Little Women I haven't read since I was a kid, and even then it was a condensed type of version. These may be condensed versions too because of the length. Hoping not but I'm not sure. When I look up Dr Jekyll books, every edition is a different length.
Please note, with absolutely horror, that Little Women has been savagely brutalized!
Just ONE day after buying this one brand-new, seriously, I must have accidentally knocked it off the chair. When I buy books I put them into Goodreads, photograph and mark them for the site, and also put in my bookstamp/bookplate before shelving. Well, this one must have been knocked off and my cat viciously attacked it! I heard a suspicious tearing sound and lo and behold, the book is now nowhere near new looking. >:(
....
ARGH!
This wouldn't be so bad, but he has already mutilated a book earlier this week too.
Behold: DESTRUCTION!!
Could the cat be deviously paying me back for writing that article and has been biding his time until now to pounce once again? Only time will tell.
It was with luck that I stumbled over another Dark Prince to replace this one. The new is a hardcover, which is a little discouraging since I'm trying to limit those because of space, and also because of the rest of my Feehan collection is paperback. Still, it was a nice looking one, a special edition with an added 100 pages!, and a very reasonable price. I'm not sure how the 100 extra pages will work out. Lots of people diss this one and say she improves as a writer later. Personally I disliked some of the later books, even though I haven't read most of the series, and always preferred Mikhail and Gregori and their early stories. Either this will be 100 pages of small details added in I don't care much about and bog it down, or else it was because she was new that they made her cut so much and had a short book because they didn't want to risk sales. If it's the second, then it may have some nice beneficial goodies buried in there.
I was THRILLED to find Shutter Island. I've had this on my wishlist for awhile and haven't had a chance to pick it up till today. Having greatly enjoyed the movie, I'm hoping the book is just as good - or better. Really digging psychological stories, I'm curious about the changes and additions from the book to movie. Who knows, perhaps this will be a new one to put on the Books-To-Movie feature.
American Heart Association Charity
Also picked up Real Men Don't Eat Quiche (looks hilarious, really!) and Crow Lake (a small drama that seems haunting)
Three books for a five dollar donation is not bad at all. I look forward to the Real Men Don't Eat Quiche the most, light and humorous from browsing through it.
Misc. Book Swag
Melissa also surprised me with a gift of two magnetic bookmarks from the museum we visited. I have really grown to love magnetic bookmarks. One is a painting from Renoir and the other a sentimental friendship bookmark to remind me of how wonderful my friends are. She also bought herself a few. They had many 3d ones that were...interesting, but frankly I limit the 3d ones since they hurt my eyes a lot of the time.
I checked the mailbox after this post and my book swag from Confessions of a Booky Monster DID come in! Thank you Booky monster :)
This includes this weeks Mailbox Monday. Until Next Time...
