Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Library Book Sale

This past weekend we stopped by the local library book sale. I wasn't really planning on going (I wanted to go, but last summer we stocked up on three banana boxes of used books at a local book store that was closing. Each box was only $10 and you could pile them pretty much as high as you wanted, as long as you could still carry it out.) Anyways, point being, I still haven't even gotten close to finishing all of those books. But when the local library sent out their notice last week that they were having a book sale, my initial reaction was "YIPPEE! Let's go!!!" And then I remembered about all the books I have yet to read and thought, well it won't kill me not to go. But as it so happened, Ian wanted to sign a book out of the library on Sunday, and the only branch that was open was the branch that was hosting the book sale! So I said "Oh SURE we can go to the library right when you pick me up from work! I don't mind at all! Oh, and do you mind if I just pop into the book sale for a minute..?"

Ha! Less than an hour later we had completely overfilled our library bag (the Sunday special was "fill a library bag for $6." We filled it, no problem!)

Here are our treasures! I got a good stack of fiction (the first, tallest stack), one of which I think I actually might already have, and two of which I couldn't remember if I'd read or not. The middle stack is Ian's stack of wine and beer brewing finds. The third stack is a variety of non-fiction finds, including two painting books, a home repair book, a kitchen design book, an interior decorating book, two cook books, and another special find I'll talk more about in a minute.
Actually, I cheated a bit there on the fiction stack. The top three are technically non-fiction, although there seems to be some debate as to how much is actually real. They are three books by Emily Carr (the painter), considered to be autobiographical, but read much like a story. I've already finished one of them (Pause by Emily Carr) and I LOVED it! I couldn't put it down! It's stories from her time at a TB Sanatorium, "the San", in England (she was sent there to rest, not because she had TB) and her descriptions of the nurses, the doctors, the patients, the scenery, are so vivid. It was one of those books that plays like a film in your mind. It also includes a variety of sketches, one of which I swear has my dad's name on it! Weird!! I think it would make a very interesting movie, but the end was a bit sad actually. Actually, much of it was a bit sad. How could it not be, set in TB sanatorium? The other two books by her include "The Heart of  Peacock" and "The Book of Small." I absolutely love her paintings, I had no idea she was a writer too. I should pay closer attention. 

This is Ian's collection of wine and beer books. There's also a book about honey in there, but I included it in his brewing pile because he's interested in honey because he wants to make mead. Brewing then.


This next one was a pretty exciting find. Ian and I both like "ethnic" foods, for lack of a better word. We love trying food from different countries and have really enjoyed making them at home ourselves. We've made Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Italian, middle Eastern, Greek, Scandinavian, etc.! So I thought we could have some fun with this "Round-The-World Cookbook." It wasn't until we got it home and I took a closer look that I realized it included travel comments for each included country, and if you can see the tiny blue print in the top right corner it says "recipes gathered by Pan American Airways from 81 countries they serve". Now I'm seriously excited! I've been loving the new series "Pan Am", and of course "Mad Men" when I've been able to catch it. We're thinking we may pick a country each month and try at least one recipe from that country every week. That might make a fun blog, too!

This last one might be the neatest, because it looks like it could have the most value of any of them. Used, they start at about $10 (and up to $50) on Amazon, which is kinda neat because we didn't pay that much for the whole bag of books. Maybe I'll consider selling it when I've read through it. A number of months ago I started making some fascinator type hair pins, and was wondering about hat-making, or millinery. I figured it can't be that hard, depending on what kind of hat you were making.. So when I saw this book, I flipped through the pages and it actually looks pretty good, so I thought I'd bring it home and take a closer look. I love hats! As far as I'm concerned, hats and gloves should make a major come-back.


Here are a few samples from within the book. They're pretty cute, particularly if you use updated material. I'll keep you posted if I try my hand at any of them!

Have you ever been to a library book sale, or similar? What are your favourite used book finds?

Have you been to Powell's City of Books in Portland? If you love books and you haven't been there yet, you're seriously missing out! It's like book-lovers Mecca! Of course they have a website (here), but visiting the bookstore is like visiting book paradise, I'm telling you. It goes on forever, filling the whole block and apparently several buildings! You go in one room, thinking that's it, but when you get to the other side you realize there's a door into another room; or you go around a corner and there's some weird staircase up to another level. It's a fantastic place, and I could easily spend a whole day there!

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