Such a gorgeous autumn day! Sunny, just a bit windy and temperatures in the low 70s. The trees are turning glorious shades of yellow and red and I had the day off work, no firm plans to do anything but read me some Casual Vacancy, when I recalled reading a rather delicious recommendation for a myssssstery on my dear friend Elaine's blog, Random Jottings.
The name of said book is In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson:
From Amazon.com:
In the blistering, dry summer, the waters of Thornfield Reservior have been depleted, revealing the ruins of the small Yorkshire village that lay at its bottom, bringing with it the unidentified bones of a brutally murdered young woman. Detective Chief Inspector Banks faces a daunting challenge: he must unmask a killer who has escaped detection for half a century. Because the dark secret of Hobb's End continue to haunt the dedicated policeman even though the town that bred then has died—and long after its former residents have been scattered to far places . . . or themselves to the grave.
Erm. Yum.
So, says I to me, why don't we take ourselves a road trip? Fire up the land barge and head to my favorite Half Price Books location? Because this couldn't end badly. I would go straight there and back, buying ONLY THE ONE BOOK. Because my self-restraint is legendary.
Shut up.
So. It's like this. I thought to myself, "As long as I'm there I'll check to see if they have any books by my favorite publishers. Just check. Because I lurve the New York Review Book editions, as well as Virago and Hesperus Press. Oh, and dear god let there be some Vintage Penguins!"
Mistake number one was grabbing a shopping cart, when I had no intent to turn this into a really big purchase (RBP). Mistake number two was THEIR fault, as they'd managed to stock their shelves with NYRBs and a Hesperus or two. And the book I need to read for the next Classics Book Group at my library. Plus a book by one of my favorite authors, Paul Auster, I found on the bargain shelves for $ 2. (I found the book, not the author, though he'd have been a positive steal for $ 2 as well.)
TWO DOLLARS! Work with me, people!
But, and you'll be proud of me for this, though I collected perhaps thirty books in my shopping cart I sat myself down on a bench and whittled that number down to a mere eight:
In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson (Score!)
Rebecca and Rowena by W.M. Thackeray ("As close as Victorian fiction gets to Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Score!)
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Doll by Daphne du Maurier (Short Stories, some never before collected.)
The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams by Peter Handke
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
Leviathan by Paul Auster
With great restraint I left behind some other NYRBs, a Hesperus (Saki - short stories), a few IAN RANKINS, a bit of Alexander McCall Smith and a few others I don't even recall, so I must not have wanted them that badly, anyway. Right?
Of course, there were no Vintage Penguins. Sad face.
But this, dear friends, qualifies as an official BLUESTALKING HAUL of the sort I haven't bragged shared about in a long while. And, while not all the books at this store are new, all the NYRBs are, as are the Hesperus Press editions, generally. The Virago (du Maurier) was brand, spankin' new, as well.
I'm feeling rather proud of myself at this moment. And I must away to reads me some more Casual Vacancy. I just wanted to share how warm and gushy I feel inside, spread a bit of bibliomania along with rainbows, sparkles and unicorns.
Unicorn
Allons-y!
