Another week, another great library book sale haul! A few days ago I popped over to Cooper Memorial Library in Clermont, Florida for their annual book sale and picked up seven great volumes I’m excited for. With the exception of my best find, all the rest were supercheap, with paperbacks $.50 and hardcovers one dollar.
I’ll save the most exciting for last, so first let’s dig into the rest.
- Great American Baseball Stories (2019) Edited by Jeff Silverman
I’m not a sports guy at all, except when it comes to baseball. I grew up loving my Chicago Cubbies and I’ll do so for the rest of my life. Weave baseball into a story and you got me interested. I haven’t heard of most of the authors in this book, so hopefully I’ll find some new ones that I enjoy, but there are stories by Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, and PG Wodehouse, and if nothing else I’m sure I’ll enjoy those ones. - Thoreau’s Vision: The Major Essays (1973) Edited by Charles R. Anderson
I fell in love with Transcendentalism the moment I was introduced to it in an English class in high school (Thanks, Mrs. Smith!) Emerson and Thoreau’s words made such a huge impact on me, but if forced to choose between the two I would pick Thoreau. Over the years I’ve moved many times, causing me to get rid of many books, but the three that I’ve always held onto are my original copies Peter Pan, The Great Gatsby, and Walden. I believe there are several essays in here that I have not read before, what a great for the coming spring. - Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (Fourth Edition, Eighth printing, 1990) by Carlos Baker
As much as I love Hemingway, I’ve never read this book, which many will argue is one of the definitive works about him. First published in 1952, he later revised it and that is the addition that I have here. It looks like it could be dense, but I’m always up for some Hemingway -related material. - Gertrude by Herman Hesse (1969)
I’ll be honest, the only thing I’ve ever read, and the only work that I know, by Hess is Siddhartha. However, I’m always interested in any work by writer who is to the test of time, so I picked this up. A German novelist, Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946. First published in 1910, it is a fictional memoir of a renowned composer. - World War I in American Fiction: An Anthology of Short Stories (2014) edited by Scott D. Emmert and Steven Trout
Seeing as the writers of the 1920s are my favorite, I naturally am interested in stories involving World War I, the main event that impacted all writing from that era. There are some big names in here, including Willa Cather, Edna Ferber, and Edith Wharton, but again many that I’ve never heard of and am excited to dig into.
That brings me to the two I am most excited for. First, I found this first edition of Ernest Hemingway is A Movable Feast from 1964. It’s missing the dust jacket, but otherwise is in really great shape. Best of all, it was only five dollars. I have a copy of this book, and just reread it a few months back, but couldn’t pass up a first edition for that price.
Lastly – and this is a big deal – we have Angela Lansbury’s Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being. Check out this cover, what more needs to be said?
One small snippet:
If you take an activity that could be ordinary, and turn it into something special, you’ll benefit. As much as I enjoy keeping busy, I know that stimulating activities mustn’t always make me feel like a whirling dervish. In fact, I’m a great ceremonial person, and I get a great deal of satisfaction from simple, common rituals that, with the qualities of familiarity and grace, enrich my life each day. I might be out in the garden for hours, but, around four-thirty or five, I come in, set a tray with freshly brewed tea and a cookie or biscuit, and bring it out to wherever we decide to sit.
Page 135
You better believe I would love to have an afternoon pick-me-up with Jessica Fletcher herself, and hear all about how positive ceremonial actions can be in one’s life.
So that’s my haul. Has anyone picked up any books recently that they’re excited for? Let me know below.
Words will keep us together 