It was the least I could do: Pandemic book shopping

Just wanted to share how selflessly I've been supporting booksellers in the U.S. and the U.K. (and perhaps one or two in New Zealand) in the past year.

Of course, the cynics among you will assume that I've done this partly for selfish reasons. Not at all. I mean, for heaven's sake, who on earth actually wants a pile of old books like this?! Nope, it's all been purely out of the goodness of my heart.

And if you think that this pile suggests that I got a bit carried away while sheltering in place, perhaps I shouldn't mention that there are actually many more, but these were the most photogenic and blog-relevant... (Nor does it include a tiny bit of D. E. Stevenson purchasing that I highlighted here.) You'll even get reviews of at least a handful of these, which surely makes it all worthwhile. You see how good I am to you?

Friends of SFPL Big Book Sale 2018, part 2: The haul

Yes, this post was indeed supposed to happen over the weekend, but through circumstances beyond my control (well, being absent-minded certainly seems to be beyond my control), it's only appearing now!

The look behind the scenes and the pics from before the sale started were fun (see here if you missed it), but let's be real—the books themselves are what we all care about. So here's the whole mess I brought home:

As I mentioned last time, not quite such a haul as last year (thank heavens, really!), but still great fun, and first off, I have to share two lovely books that I'm including with the sale books but that were really lovely gifts from Deborah, who does the wonderful Book Barmy blog. Have a look:

Both GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL and LOUISE PLATT HAUCK will belong on my American Women Writers list (if I ever get back around to that), and both books look like great fun. And the dustjackets are to die for (I will fetishize them some more for you when I've read them). Thanks so much, Deborah, for making book sale day even brighter and more exciting than usual!

At the book sale itself, there weren't actually a large number of really exceptional finds, but rather late in the sale, I happened to glance at one of the boxes under a table and see a suspiciously old hardcover, with two more dusty old books under it. And lo and behold!

Two of these three are by authors on my list. The book with a dustjacket, of course, is a SHELLEY SMITH novel, one of several of her novels to have been released in e-book in the past couple of years. I have at least one other Shelley Smith novel on my shelves, languishing unread, but how could I pass up a dustjacketed copy?

The second of the books is more obscure and therefore right up my alley. MARY DURHAM wrote eleven mysteries in the 1940s and 1950s, about which little information has been available, so I'm delighted to have the chance to read one!

And the third might be the most obscure of all, since I can find little about its author, KATHERINE MCCOMB, except that she wrote at least a couple of other mysteries and a few romances. The Library of Congress only lists two of her titles, not including this one, Death in a Downpour, published in 1960. Is it a great lost treasure? Well, probably not, but you never know!

Then, shortly after, I came across the CELIA FREMLIN paperback. I've always meant to read The Hours Before Dawn, her most famous novel. I didn't find that one, but Appointment with Yesterday seems to have been well-received too. She's apparently more suspense than mystery, which may or may not work for me, but it should be interesting.

I also picked up a couple of other books specifically relevant to or of significant interest for this blog:

The first—MARGARET HALSEY's With Malice Toward Some—is really also thanks to Deborah, who pointed it out to me when we chatted during the sale. I've been meaning to read Halsey's humorous book about travelling in the U.K., and now I have no excuse not to (except the two thousand or so other books on my TBR list!).

This year, as always, Andy was with me at the sale and had his list of authors to be on the lookout for. I've never thought to put MABEL ESTHER ALLAN on his list before, but I've been reading a fair amount of her this year, and some of her later works in particular seem to have had success in the U.S., so I thought why not? I didn't really expect him to find anything, but I underestimated him. The Flash Children, the beginning of one of Allan's late series for younger readers, wasn't my highest priority (why couldn't Lost Lorrenden or Glenvara or another of her vanishingly rare titles from the 1950s have just happened to turn up?), but I'm happy enough to get to sample her later work.

And while Andy was perusing the children's section, he also picked up a few other older books, all American, that he thought might appeal to me. I had to Google DORIS GATES' Blue Willow, but one look at a reference to it as a Grapes of Wrath for young readers made clear I'd have to give it a try. I know I've also come across CORNELIA MEIGS before, though I can't recall how or in what context. Wild Geese Flying isn't one of her best-known works, it seems, but I was intrigued enough to give it a try.

The two JANET ALDRIDGE books are new to me and pretty bedraggled. What little I can find out about the Meadow-Brook Girls series suggests they could easily go either way—great fun or purely dreadful—but I knew I needed to peruse them a bit more.

Now, ordinarily, a beat-up copy of a WILLIAM INGE novel wouldn't seem like a "find" in particular. Inge, as some Americans and probably very few Brits will know, was primarily known as a playwright—author of Picnic (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize), Bus Stop, and Come Back, Little Sheba, all of which were probably more widely known for their film versions than for the plays they were based on. He also won an Oscar for his screenplay of Splendour in the Grass. He's not known particularly for his fiction, which consisted of only two novels. Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff was the first, about a high school teacher who has an affair with an African-American janitor, with many repercussions.

So what makes a copy of this novel, a little worse for wear despite being a first edition, something of a find? What about this?:

Too bad he lost control of his pen a bit and blotted the first name, but if you can't make it out, yes, it does say "Bill Inge." Which makes this the second vintage author inscription I've come across this year at library book sales—I've been meaning to post about the first for a while, so hopefully this will inspire me.

Then, a few more books that are perhaps very loosely related to the blog:

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER is one of very few authors I might actually enjoy reading letters by and to, so The Element of Lavishness, including her correspondence with long-time friend and New Yorker fiction editor, was a nice acquisition. And I have an on-again/off-again love affair with Aussie CHRISTINA STEAD, so it's fun to have a nice-ish copy of one of her late novels, Miss Herbert, which I haven't yet read.

I have a real fondness for the rather quiet, low-key travel books of EMILY KIMBROUGH, and have read a number of them, but Floating Island is one of those I haven't read yet, so that's a nice find. And I have a peculiar fascination with Ottoline Morrell, a Bloomsbury figure and all-around eccentric, and actually had MIRANDA SEYMOUR's bio of her on my TBR list. And finally, although it's surely one of the bleakest books of the past year or so, based on the reviews I've come across, I already meant to read MARGARET DRABBLE's The Dark Flood Rises, and a pristine hardcover cover was too much to resist.

The biggest group of books from this year's sale are an array of contemporary (or at least more recent than my blog's period) mysteries, including several that are the first in their respective series, which is handy. None of these are rare or extraordinary, but it's always nice to stock up on relaxing reads at bargain prices.

Finally, just a few odds and ends:

I've actually read the Capote, the Baldwin, and the Mann books before, but thought re-reads might be in order. I can't quite imagine what possessed me to buy the Kerouac—I think I bought it once before—but I did sort of like On the Road when I read it ages ago (probably at a more appropriate age, honestly, when I was young and restless), and thought if I re-read it it might as well be the more complete, less edited scroll version. I'll probably just donate it back in a few months, but who knows? And I meant to read some Patrick Modiano when he won the Nobel Prize a few years ago, and never did (of course), so Missing Person looked kind of intriguing.

And that's that. Certainly not a bad collection, though also certainly fewer really exciting finds than in previous years. I think the Friends have become much savvier about weeding out the best vintage titles to sell online for higher prices. Which is understandable and desirable from the perspective of raising money for the library. But I think it just might mean that the golden age of the Friends book sales is over. Still entirely worth attending, of course, but not quite the excitement that it used to be. Ah, well, all good things…

Friends of SFPL Big Book Sale 2018, part 1: Prep and preview

Yes indeed, it's that time of year again. Actually, rather later in the year than usual, due to scheduling issues, but better late than never. Tuesday afternoon was the Members' Preview of this year's Friends of the San Francisco Library Big Book Sale, which is always a fun and fascinating experience. I just realized that I have posted about all the Friends book sales since the fall of 2013 (see here), though I had attended several before that.

I plan to post about my acquisitions (a bit disappointing, but still exciting) later on in the week or over the weekend, but today I wanted to hurry and share a bit of a preview and remind anyone who lives in the Bay Area and is reading this that they need to get to Fort Mason post haste.

Thanks to Lisa Gayton, who works for the Friends and just happens to be a reader of this blog, Andy and I were able, a couple of weeks ago, to visit the Friends of SFPL donation center and get a behind the scenes look at the awe-inspiring stacks of boxes and boxes and boxes of books being sorted and prepped for the sale. At the time, we were on our way to the gym, so I wasn't really camera-ready, but Andy insisted on snapping a pic of Lisa and me outside the donation center. What was I thinking wearing horizontal stripes?!?!

(By the way, if you do live in the Bay Area and don't already know it, do consider donating your overflow books to this excellent cause. Here is info about donating books, and of course you can also support the organization by becoming a member, with all the benefits—including tickets to the book sale preview—membership confers.)

Inside the donation center, well, just wow! Not only an astonishing volume of books—Andy had to hold me back from just diving right into the middle of them—but also an amazingly well-organized system for sorting the books, boxing them up, and stashing them in such a way that they can easily be moved into the proper places at Fort Mason. Here's a peek:

Lisa assured me, by the way, that the building—particularly the loft space—had undergone rigorous testing and appropriate reinforcement to ensure that it's completely safe for supporting the weight of hundreds of thousands of books. This is an earthquake zone, after all!

Then, yesterday afternoon, as the line began to grow outside, we were able—thanks to Lisa again—to sneak into the pavilion and get some wonderful pictures of the pristine tables of books, not yet rifled through by the masses. It's always so tantalizing seeing the sale this way. It inspires such anticipation of joyous shopping ahead!

I also got the pleasure of seeing Deborah from the delightful Book Barmy blog again. Deborah volunteers at the Fort Mason Readers Bookstore operated by the Friends of SFPL, and I met her there last year. This year, though, she was volunteering at the sale itself, and she'll get a special mention in the next post. There will, of course, also be details about my acquisitions, but it will have to wait until I've recovered a bit more. How is it that merely standing and browsing through tables of books for three hours can be more exhausting than a full gym workout?!?!

But if you're in or anywhere near the Bay Area, just imagine how nice it would feel for you to be similarly exhausted, and have a nice big stack of books beside you at that!

Coming clean: The Big Book Sale part 2

Before I make my traditional full confession in the form of a single rather horrifying photo, I feel I should say a couple of things to justify myself. I know there could be no group of people more understanding about compulsive book shopping than you lovely readers, but still...

Consider these factors:

1) I have always budgeted a certain, fairly generous budget for the library book sales, and I've budgeted an amount for both the spring and the fall sales. But this year, as I mentioned before, the spring sale was discontinued. In other words, my budget for this sale effectively doubled (and I still had a bit left over, believe it or not).

2) In the past few weeks, I have made a sort of resoltuion to read some of the classic works that I've just never got round to, especially with all of the reading I've done for the blog. Of course, because this is who I am, I made an extensive reading list. And what better time to stock up on books I've meant to read but haven't than when the selection and prices are this good?

and

3) I have, as you'll see, also recently felt a reawakened interest in contemporary fiction. Among other things, I work with several people who are avid readers, and peer pressure has its effects. So I partly had in mind sharing many of the recent books I picked up with my officemates. A decent excuse for splurging, right?

Okay, but all that said, it's still a rather shocking photo:

The whole shameful pile. Oh what have I done?!

Good heavens. I should note that I am throwing in a few other fun finds from what has been a downright orgiastic two weeks of book shopping, including my most recent visit to the library's "step sale" just a couple of blocks from my office, a visit to the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library shop across the Bay last Saturday, and a more melancholy but bargain-rich visit to our wonderful neighborhood bookshop, the Overland Book Company, which is—like so many other bookshops—closing down soon, and has marked down it's entire tantalizing inventory. But the vast majority of the books still came from the Big Book Sale itself.

Here was the weighted-down trunk of my car on Tuesday night. Of course, there was a return visit to the sale yesterday, which added considerably to the haul.

Yikes. First and foremost, several titles from the book sale directly related to this blog. I was particularly delighted to see three enticing works from the 1920s by authors I've read before, but not nearly enough. CLEMENCE DANE's The Babyons (1927), according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "traces a curse through four generations," so we'll see how that goes, but I'm very intrigued and the cover, even without a dustjacket, is quite lovely.

I read SUSAN ERTZ's Madame Claire quite a while back and enjoyed it a lot, so I was happy to see not one but two more of her early novels looking up at me from the fiction table. According to a Time review, The Galaxy (1929) is about the "galaxy of scenes and faces and delights" recalled by an elderly woman dying in the 1920s.

My copy of The Galaxy

 

And a glimpse of the original dustjacket

Now East, Now West (1927), meanwhile, according to the Orlando Project, "presents a contrast between the societies of England and America."

For the first time, I came across a JON GODDEN novel (and now that I think of it, can't recall seeing a single book by her sister Rumer—the first time that's ever happened, I think, though fortunately I have virtually everything she ever wrote already). The Seven Islands (1956) is about a holy man's attempts to stop an ashram from taking over one of the islands in the Ganges because it will destroy a bird sanctuary. Kirkus called it "entrancing" and describes it as a "spiritual fable styled in the rich, ringing simplicity that accompanies wisdom beyond knowledge." Despite their slightly purple prose, I'm excited to read it.

I had never seen a photo of Rumer's sister before.
A definite family resemblance.

Last year's sale was the first time in ages that I came across any D. E. STEVENSON, but this year continued that trend, with a slightly bedraggled copy of The English Air (with a rather ghastly cover) and a rather nice one of Still Glides the Stream.

Although I've already read the book, how could I possibly have resisted this charming 1960s reprint edition of FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT's The Making of a Marchioness? I try to discourage myself from buying books I already have, but sometimes it's just not possible. And of course I had to research the "Doughty Library" series, and found an informative page here which includes a listing of some of the later titles in the series.

I've been planning to try to get PAMELA HANSFORD JOHNSON's WWII novel Winter Quarters (1944) from Interlibrary Loan for ages, so how nice is it that a copy just fell into my hands? It's about the complications that ensue when an anti-tank regiment sets up camp near a small English village. Right up my alley indeed.

I knew almost nothing about VITA SACKVILLE-WEST's The Easter Party (1953), one of her late novels, but of course I knew I needed it on my shelves. And a review of it by Mirabile Dictu here only reinforced that my instinct was correct.

My copy is naked, but here's
the original dustjacket 

Only one green Virago in the mix this time, but I'm delighted to have it, as it's another I've always meant to get round to.

Ever since our two days of Bloomsbury sightseeing last October I've been meaning to read ANGELICA GARNETT's Deceived with Kindness (1984), about her unconventional (to say the least) upbringing. So how pleased was I to just happen to notice it in the European History section, of all places (an oblique commentary/critique on the fact that, for the time being, the book could arguably belong there, but in a few years it won't???), a section I hadn't otherwise done more than glance at?

I've been meaning to get back to reading/re-reading more Muriel Spark ever since a re-read of Loitering with Intent early this year, so the acquisition of three more of her books will further that ambition. These include a lovely vintage edition of The Hothouse by the East River (1973), one of her New York novels which are so far untested waters for me.

From the Friends bookshop (in one of the vintage sections Deborah pointed out to me) comes this Irish-interest children's title from AYLMER HALL, a similarly untested author on my list, complete with a slightly-weathered dustjacket. It could certainly go either way, but I'm happy to have a chance to sample her work.

Tucked into the mystery section at the book sale was one of Edith Pargeter's mainstream novels, Lost Children, a postwar novel that was certainly worth $1.

For those of you with Type A personalities,
yes, I'm afraid the image on the cover
really is this crooked. The cover scan is
exactly straight. Grrrrr.

When I came across a DIANA COOPER memoir at the Overland Book Company last weekend, I felt certain it couldn't be the volume covering WWII, which I had always wanted to read. How could I get that lucky? But lo and behold, the book gods were watching over me, and Trumpets from the Steep is indeed the volume covering the war years.

The rest of the acquisitions, which don't directly relate to the blog, I'll start lumping together, but there are a few more finds and covers that I want to share.

Among books loosely related (in time period or theme) to the blog, there was this delightful book that Deborah at the Friends shop had mentally earmarked for me. KATHLEEN NORRIS is American, but several people have recommended that I should read her, and who could resist the lovely dustjacket?

If SHIRLEY HAZZARD weren't an Aussie, she'd certainly belong on my list, and having read The Great Fire a number of years ago and been blown away, I've always meant to get back to her, so coming across two earlier titles as well as a pristine copy of Great Fire proved an irresistible temptation. I had not even heard of her debut, The Evening of the Holiday, and it's one of those lovely, well-designed and well-maintained hardcovers that are such a pleasure to hold in one's hand.

Then there's this wonderful vintage Salinger cover. Probably most of you across the Atlantic know that the volume Americans think of as Nine Stories appeared practically everywhere else in the world as For Esmé with Love and Squalor, but it was news to me, and I had to grab it. I'm not the biggest Salinger fan in the world, but it may well make a good gift for someone who is, or simply be wonderful shelf candy.

Check out this cute little WOLF MANKOWITZ book with not only A Kid for Two Farthings, which was reprinted by Bloomsbury a few years ago, but another of his titles as well. Has anyone read either of them?

I've always meant to read L. P. HARTLEY's The Go-Between, so this pristine hardcover reprint had to go in the cart.

This lovely omnibus edition of most of DJUNA BARNES's most important works had to make its way to my shelves. (For those who missed it, Barnes, too little known outside of academic circles, makes a brief appearance in Woody Allen's wonderful Midnight in Paris, when Owen Wilson's character, fresh from dancing with a glamorous woman, is told by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Oh, I see you've met Djuna Barnes.")

Oddly, Barnes, who is purported to be quite a difficult author, is a favorite of mine, but I've still, criminally, never read one of America's most beloved women authors, FLANNERY O'CONNOR. That will finally change with this lovely vintage paperback, published when quality paperbacks actually meant quality—it's solidly bound, with nice thick paper and reader-friendly print, not to mention a charming cover. And the opening line is already making me wonder how I could have waited so long to read it...

On the subject of American writers of the period, have any of you who read American fiction come across RUTH SUCKOW? I think I remember coming across a review of a story collection she wrote, but I was surprised to see one of her books had been reprinted in recent years. It's a huge book, so we'll see how I get on with it, but it bothered me that I wasn't "in the know" about her, so the book leapt right into my cart.

I'll also mention a couple of unknown quantities I gambled on. I had never heard of CHRISTINE WESTON, an American novelist who has clearly fallen very far out of favor. I was merely seduced by the dustjacket and some vague instinct that she might be of interest. When I got home from the sale, I looked her up and found that one of her earlier novels had been compared to Henry James by none other than Dawn Powell (see below), so I'm certainly glad I picked it up. Her New York Times obituary here also mentions praise from E. M. Forster.

Some better-read mystery fans than I are already familiar with HELEN REILLY, who published more than 30 novels, but who was unknown to me. Andy actually brought the wonderfully gaudy paperback of Compartment K to me, because it looked like something I might like (some of my best finds at the book sale are always thanks to Andy noticing book covers that "look like my thing"). It has cruelly small print and yellowed pages, but the setting—a train trip through the Canadian Rockies—sealed the deal. See here for an interesting analysis of Reilly's work.

And finally, M. F. K. FISHER is another American, and one best known as a food writer. I've seen this book around dozens of times over the years, and assumed it wasn't my cup of tea, but when I finally picked it up I discovered that it was her only novel, written in 1947, and it suddenly became rather enticing. Have any of you read it?

Now, here in one lovely pile are some of the other titles with loose connections to the blog.

You can see here, too, that my interest in American fiction is reawakening a bit. Yet another resolution to finally read a famous work applies to THORNTON WILDER's most famous work of fiction (I've only ever read "Our Town," and that back in college days), as well as MAY SARTON. JESSIE REDMON FAUSET and CLAUDE MCKAY are Harlem Renaissance authors (as is RUDOLPH FISHER in the mystery pile below), but I haven't read these particular works. Some of you might know of CORNELIA OTIS SKINNER (Simon at Stuck in a Book has written enthusiastically about her, and she co-authored Our Hearts Were Young and Gay with Emily Kimbrough, who would later become a well-known travel humorist). This will be my first encounter with her as well. The aforementioned DAWN POWELL is another underrated American author, whose books are getting harder to find again, so I'm happy to add three more to my collection. She was rediscovered in the 1990s and enthusiastically embraced, but now seems in danger of being forgotten again. I've never read JANET FLANNER's writings about Paris, roughly parallel with Mollie Panter-Downe's Letters from London in The New Yorker, but I'll bet they'll be fun. And it was Andy who happily found LOUISE DICKINSON RICH's We Took to the Woods in a nice hardcover, which several people have recommended to me over the years. Oh, and the little red book you can barely see is FRANÇOISE SAGAN's Bonjour Tristesse, which Andy also found.

This book sale is always a grand opportunity to stock up on mysteries, as they're all priced ridiculously at $1 each. This year was no exception, and I even upgraded my old paperback of UMBERTO ECO's The Name of the Rose to a snazzy, pristine hardcover. I've already started reading C. J. SANSOM's Dissolution, which was reviewed in a recent issue of The Scribbler, and I'm irrevocably hooked. Happily, I also found the fourth in the series, Revelation, but I was told in no uncertain terms by a fellow mystery fan at the sale that I must read this series in order, so I've already (believe it or not) ordered a copy of the second book from Abe Books—yes, even this extreme book-buying orgy seems only to be leading to additional purchases! Plus, I've been wanting to try ALAN BRADLEY for ages, which will probably lead to more purchases as well. The others are mostly new to me as well, but I bet they're not to many of you.

It may come as a shock that I've lately been delving into far more contemporary fiction than is my norm. I might write a bit about that here soon, as I've read a couple of recent novels that I'm quite enthusiastic about and have several more on my shelves already that I'm dying to get to. So this year's haul contains considerably more recent fiction than is my norm.

There are four authors here that used to be among my favorites, but whom I've been neglecting for a decade or two. I read all of TONI MORRISON's early books, but nothing since Jazz, which I loved (of course Beloved's status goes without saying). I jumped on a pristine hardcover of that one, and also the more recent A Mercy. I've also missed the last two or three by KAZUO ISHIGURO, whose early work I love love love, and along similar lines I haven't read MICHAEL ONDAATJE since falling in love with The English Patient back in the 90s. Ditto PAT BARKER, whose work I haven't read since the Regeneration trilogy, so I thought I'd sample her Blitz-related Noonday. Of the other current authors, believe it or not I've never read SARAH WATERS, GERALDINE BROOKS, ROSE TREMAIN, or TOM MCCARTHY, though I know they all have impressive reputations.

And finally, a whole array of other books that I've always meant to read or was suddenly inspired to want to read when I saw them on the sale tables.

I'm particularly taken with two more random finds in this category. GIORGIO BASSANI's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, in a slightly bedraggled but still lovely hardcover, was impossible to resist, as was a Faber & Faber edition of Lawrence Durrell's Nunquam.

I'm a big fan of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, but have read nothing else by him. From online reviews of Nunquam, I'm not sure what to expect, but it's a lovely book, and the little mass market paperback of The Dark Labyrinth is also proof of the afore-mentioned quality that once was lavished by publishers even on low-budget editions.

And in a nice bit of kismet, someone told me only last week I had to read GUNTER GRASS's The Tin Drum, so how nice to find a spanking new copy of the new translation of it just waiting for me at the sale.

By the way, the almost invisible little Modern Library edition at the top of the pile is a charming early edition of GERTRUDE STEIN's Three Lives. This was another wonderful Andy find—there's a reason people are always saying that he should be sainted, and it may be time to contact the Pope about making it happen...

You must be bored out of your minds with my bibliophilia by now, but that is (finally) that. What a marvelous sale it was—I think this might have been the most fun I've ever had, though I am also exhausted and have been using Advil and yoga to try to loosen up the seriously stiff back and neck that are one of the perils of fanatical bookshopping.

The other peril, of course, is finding space, which I'm off to attempt right now. Wish me luck!