Okay. So I ended up with more than three books. That was sort of inevitable. I went to Borders over the weekend. It's been a while since I have been to a bookstore, and quite a while since I have been to Borders (different books, different displays). Have you noticed they love having tables with books that are "three for the price of two"? I usually pass them by as I always have several of the books that look interesting, and I can't find three that I really, really want. Well, I managed to find three that I wanted. My three for two books are Karleen Koen's Through a Glass Darkly (remember I mentioned reading this when I was younger?). Since I have the "prequel" checked out from the library, I thought it might be fun to read Through a Glass Darkly again...and well, it was staring me in the face. I also bought David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, and The Great Stink by Clare Clark (Victorian London--the sewers no less).
My other "finds": Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. by Jeremy Mercer (another nonfiction read about a famous bookstore...a little follow-up to the Buzbee book), Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor and Richard Henry Dana's Two years Before the Mast (a personal narrative of life at sea). My intention for going to the bookstore was to find some sort of visual aid to help me with all the nautical terms that I am encountering in the Horatio Hornblower stories. A lot of the terms I have heard before and I can usually tell if they are talking about sails and such, but I thought it would still be nice to really see what I am reading about. So I will be getting this book. I hope it isn't too simplified. The Dana book actually has line drawings of the parts of a boat, but they are fairly small. Anyone know of any good websites or books that show the details?
I found this post by Jenclair really interesting. I like the idea of "reading Itineraries". I seem to be doing that right now with my seafaring books. I am starting with Horatio Hornblower, but I also plan on reading some Patrick O'Brian, and other books along these lines (two of my new books are sailing tales--fiction and nonfiction). And I have a whole list of seafaring books to choose from. I think I do this unconsciously quite often. People or places or time periods. I read one book I like and then I want to immerse myself in more!