The Battered Book Buyer

Maybe it's my imagination, but the VNSA Book sale seemed even more crowded than usual this year - lots of aisle-blocking shopping carts and whole families shopping en masse.  I took one elbow in the ribs but otherwise escaped unscathed.

For $13.75 plus the $7.00 parking fee I bought (all in excellent condition):

• a leather-bound hardcover edition of Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie, to replace my crumbling paperback; one of the "Tommy and Tuppence" mysteries
• trade paperback of The Blue Girl by Charles deLint; I had several of his early books but not this
• 3 books in one hardcover of the Lord Darcy mysteries by Randall Garrett, to replace the one I gave away years ago; Lord Darcy is a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey in a Victorian world where magic functions
• paperback copy of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; haven't read this yet
• hardcover copies of R is for Ricochet and T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton; I've read these but they were the only books in the Kinsey Milhone series I didn't own
• paperback of A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler by Frances Mayes; love Mayes, haven't read this before
• hardcover Provence A-Z by Peter Mayle; another new discovery
• hardcover of Rules of Engagement, a science fiction novel by Elizabeth Moon, a former career military officer; sequel to Once a Hero, which I loved
• hardcover of The Ship Avenged by S.M. Stirling; the last book in the Ship Who Sang series created by Anne McCaffrey, and another volume I haven't read yet
• VHS tape of Though Lovers Be Lost; last season of the cult fantasy TV show Beauty and the Beast, starring Linda Hamilton (The Terminator) and Ron Perlman
• VHS tape of Legal Eagles; great 1986 mystery starring Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and Daryl Hannah

Now all I have to do is curl up with one of these and a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” ~Mark Twain