Last library book sale of the year (was actually the first Saturday of this month, but I am only now getting around to sharing my finds).
Lots of goodies as you can see. Not only did I get all these books for less than $24, but they gave me a reusable tote bag to carry them in. This is the first tote of the sort that is actually quite spacious but not overly large. It has this rounded shape and holds an amazing number of books. Even these two piles were sort of dwarfed inside. And the bag is even reversible.
My great finds were the Guernsey book, which I wanted to reread (but the library copy I had checked out had to go back before I had a chance to get far into it), the book of short stories by Penelope Lively, and the novel about Georgia O'Keeffe, which for ages I had been contemplating buying. How can you beat an almost new copy for the low low low price of $1.00? I am unfamiliar with Frances Molloy and Janet Hobhouse, but I am willing to try new authors when I can get their books at a library sale. I admit the Freeling mysteries were more because I love those old Penguin editions with their cool covers, but I know some of his books have won awards, so we'll see how I get on with Inspector Van der Valk.
I usually only scour the fiction room, too tired out to move on to the room where all the nonfiction books are, but this time I did take a quick peek. I need to check that room out more often. I scored a Peresphone, though it has library markings. A biography of Sylvia Plath, a travel memoir set in Italy, a coffee cookbook, and Rebecca Mead's book about reading Middlemarch. Wouldn't that make a great pairing? Reread Middlemarch and the Mead book together.
And a few 'new' new books and all of them nonfiction. I am not sure how I will do it, but I do need to make reading NF a priority in 2019. I keep buying these fantastic sounding books but slowly (glacially slow) reading them. Imagine spending a year reading almost exclusively nonfiction?! Maybe three nonfiction books and then picking up a novel or mystery. That might be too ambitious for me, but I think I might make the Camille Laurens book on the top my first read of 2019. Nonfiction. A book about art. And then I can go to my local museum and see the Little Dancer statue by Degas as we have one here in Omaha!
Can I make it through the end of the year without another book purchase? I should be able to. I expect I might get to the used bookstore or my local B&N (and should make the special trip out to one of our few indie stores that is unfortunately off the beaten path for me) that might make that hard. And I suspect that I might just get a gift card or two this season. I only wish I could read them as fast as I acquire them. (You see now, why I always have so many books in progress . . .).