September 29, 2009

Pickings less slim than planned

This is the fifth year that I’ve attended the Victoria College Booksale on Half-Price Monday, and I regret that it may have to be the last. The same books are always left over and for a long time they were exactly the books I wanted, but I have them all now, so the pickings seem a bit slim. Which is probably the reason I thought I was being so prudent as I browsed, careful to only pick up books I had some intention of reading with pleasure (rather than books I’d read if I were somebody I’d rather be, which is a mistake I’ve made before). In the end, however, my stack was not so modest. It was smaller than in years past, but that’s not saying very much.

I got an ARC of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading by Maureen Corrigan (because I liked the title), The Sweet Edge by Alison Pick (because I just read her story in The New Quarterly), That Scatterbrain Booky by Bernice Thurman Hunter, Charlotte’s Web by EB White (because they’re both wonderful, and Harriet can read them when she’s bigger), Almost Japanese by Sarah Sheard (because I liked the title– Japan having once been my home– and then I saw it was Coach House, and knew I couldn’t go wrong), Dear Mem Fox by Mem Fox (I KNOW! I KNOW!, and I hope no one reading is too deterred by my being absolutely obsessed with this woman. I am so excited to read this book), The Space a Name Makes by Rosemary Sullivan, Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (because I’ve already read it, and therefore it won’t sit on my To Be Read shelf!), Fludd by Hilary Mantel (see– slim pickings. I’ve long swore I’d never read a book called Fludd, but now maybe I will. I do love Hilary Mantel, and this isn’t the most historic of her historical fiction, and so…), Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (because I’ve wanted to read her for a while), My Cousin Rachel by Daphne DuMaurier (even though I haven’t managed to get around to Jamaica Inn from last year), Goodbye Tsugsumi and Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto (because we like Japanese fiction in translation at our house), Believe Me by Patricia Pearson (sequel to Playing House, which I read in the spring), Salvador by Joan Didion (because, because, because), and Fatal Charms by Dominick Dunne (a collection of his essays. Am looking forward to it). And also, Eloise, because everyone needs a primer on misbehaviour.