Indie presses folding. Mega-presses consolidating. Indie shops closing. Mega-stores dictating terms to publishers. It sounds grim if you're a reader who loves to browse in bookshops and wants a variety of good reading. But what to do? I am a single reader. Here's what I did: I made lists. Because that's what
I'm aiming to have all of Margaret Drabble's books on my shelves s-o-m-e-d-a-y. And I can tell myself that's do-able because I actually quite like the old Penguin paperbacks of her work. And, when you find those at booksales, they often only cost $1. Yes, they're usually a
When I first mentioned that Fridays were going to be reserved for letters, Laura mentioned Helene Hanff's epistolary classic right off. She reminded me how much I love this collection. And, so, I pulled the volume off the shelf and aimed for a re-read. If you're reading these
So maybe I've been to another booksale. Maybe I have. I'm not saying that I have. I'm just saying maybe. And maybe, if I did. Maybe I bought something. If I had, I might have bought a children's book. It might have been a book that my mother read to
Oh, they're wonderful. Library and college booksales. NCL lovelies (Sinclair Ross' The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories; Robertson Davies' Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack; Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel...an old addiction) John Wyndhams (Day of the Triffids* and The Chrysalids: why don't I already have these? Maybe because that BBC mini-series* in
