Spring Book Sale Tally

Having intended to get to the book sale when it opened, but was delayed by a sinus headache. After breakfast, on the way, realized as I was driving to Jim Miller Park that I didn't have cash. Only cash or checks are taken. So I detoured to Publix, but this isn't one with my bank. I bought two Lindt chocolate bunnies for Easter and got cash that way.

Was lucky to find a space at the front. In retrospect, it would have been closer to the entrance if I'd parked in the "ditch" behind the exhibit buildings. Unfortunately I got to the children's books just as all the SAHMs with the strollers arrived. Now, this was eerie...I was thinking to myself, what would I most like to find at this book sale? And my answer was "Hardback copies of The Good Master and The Singing Tree (by Kate Seredy) with the crayon portraits and the map."

And darned if I didn't...

Well, I didn't find both of them, but pretty much as soon as I looked in a few boxes I did find a nice hardback of The Good Master, along with a good hardback copy of The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden and Dobry by Monica Shannon (a Newbery winner I've never read). I also picked up a rather tatty paperback copy of Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, but I've wanted to read this one because the Fossil sisters of Ballet Shoes are mentioned in it.

The stroller/plunk your box on boxes people are trying to look through/people with crates and suitcases on wheels finally got too much for me and I went into the other building. The history aisle was choked full at first, as was biography, so I started along the wall with humor/travel/etc. until I found the section where they had put the Christmas books. Alas, I did not find another Sutton House book about Christmas in England, however, ignoring the craft and cook books, and the sentimental fiction, I scored Spirits of Christmas by David Hartwell, supernatural Christmas short stories which include Dickens' "The Haunted Man," The Guideposts Christmas Treasury from 1973 (I could tell just by the cover font when it was printed!), and A Christmas Secret by Anne Perry, which I had borrowed from the library when it was released and really liked.

By the time I got done there, the crowd at History, Biography, and Literature had cleared and I found the following: Reading for Pleasure by Bennett Cerf, a collection of short stories, including Capote's "A Christmas Memory" and Davis' "The Bar Sinister," Literary Landscapes of the British Isles, which is exactly what it states, places in Britain which have been made famous by fiction, When Trumpets Call by Patricia O'Toole (Theodore Roosevelt after the White House), America's Hidden History, which I passed on way back at Borders but which was okay for a buck, and A Choice of Days by H.L. Mencken, a chronicle of his early life.

My bag was getting a bit overloaded when I headed back toward the children's section. I didn't bother hitting the fiction books, as they run pretty hard on bestsellers and not much else, or the paperbacks, which are usually in bad shape. Well, I came upon a treasure-trove.

World Book released a set of "Christmas in..." books in several editions, and I found two different boxes of them (glad to find the second box, because the initial Christmas in Britain I found was in pretty bad shape). I had actually been looking at a sale set of them advertised by World Book about a week ago. I didn't buy all of them, but did score Christmas in...Britain/Italy/Colonial and Early America/America in the 1700s and 1800s/Scotland/Austria/Germany/Switzerland/Washington DC.

In the first box I also found a copy of the mystery Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death by M.C. Beaton, apparently just dropped there by someone.

Finally, I picked up a very nice Lady and the Tramp storybook, and something called Walt Disney's World of Nature, which I would have passed on had it not had the complete story from "Flash, the Teenage Otter" at the back.

Good thing I had brought a second bag with me. :-) This totted up to $29.00.

Horrors! It was raining outside! Now I wished I had parked in the ditch! Luckily it was light rain, and I darted (as well as you can dart with two large reusable grocery bags full of books!) from overhang to eave to tree and finally one last sprint to the car.

Now I just have to find somewhere to put them. This may be harder than carrying the bags!