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It was a night I had been anticipating for months. As I walked down the ramp I wondered wich of my senses would be teased first? Would it be my sense of hearing, with the crowds and the sound of paper turning? Would it be my sense of smell, picking up the delicate aroma of old leather and wet paper?
It turned out to be the sense of touch--the painful touch of concrete scraping against my legs and the jarring impact of my large body slamming into the sidewalk
As I was walking down the garage ramp to where they were holding the annual "St. Louis Book Fair" I was so excited I wasn't watching to closely where I was going. Since the ramp in the malls garage is rarely used by pedestrians, they did not cover a 18 inch wide drain that they had cut into the sidewalk.
My foot found it with ease, and left me bruised, shaken, and having to throw out my best pair of suit pants. Soar and limping I continued down to the lowest level of the garage where the volunteers had transformed the parking spaces into table after table of books for sale.
Despite the pain I was in heaven.
I spent two hours, not rushing for medical attention, but wading through the books.
Was it worth it?
The books were in a wide variety, ranging from torn children's books to full encyclopedias.
I picked up the following:
A first edition "Crusade In Eruope" by Dwight D Eisenhower, in good condition but with no cover. Cost: $2.00
A first edition "Peyton Place" in good condition, but who's cover is torn and ratty. Cost: $.50
That pretty well covers both ends of the 1950s.
"Salons Colonial & Republican" by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, first edition published 1900 in excellent condition. Cost:$3.00
The most expensive book, a large hard bound edition of Science History by Isaac Asimov cost me a whole $5.00
I picked up a few good reading books as well.
I avoided some terrible books. "The Biography of Monica Lewinski" brought the most laughs. Whoever put "The Full Text Of The Watergate Hearings" in the Science fiction section must have had a great sense of humor.
I picked up another old book that looked interesting. I read the intro and it talked about the author's striving to spread the word about Lawrence of Arabia to the world after "The World War". I was excited thinking this was the book that "Lawrence of Arabia" was created from, only to find out that this book was a biography of the promoter who backed the book "Lawrence of Arabia".
I limped back to my car three hours later, with a box full of books, and $20 less in my wallet.
I did notice one thing of interest. King, Asimov, Clark, and many other great Sci Fi writers had a lot of books on those tables. THe most popular writers had tons.
OSC had only three--one each of Lovelock, Shadow of the Hedgemon, and Lost Boys. I realized that was because once someone buys a Card book, they don't want to ever get rid of it. The others are not read until they fall apart.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Soar and limping I continued down to the lowest level..
Sore?
I'm jealous of the book thing, though. My sister talked me out of buying books tonight. I really wanted some of them! Posts: 925 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:I did notice one thing of interest. King, Asimov, Clark, and many other great Sci Fi writers had a lot of books on those tables. THe most popular writers had tons.
OSC had only three--one each of Lovelock, Shadow of the Hedgemon, and Lost Boys. I realized that was because once someone buys a Card book, they don't want to ever get rid of it. The others are not read until they fall apart.
In my vast used bookstore experience (spanning several states and even a couple countries), I've also noticed this phenomenon. Yay us!
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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