Recent Acquistions #53

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

Saturday was a gala book day. We went into a local town that has a Waterstones and the sff secondhand bookstall I found earlier in the month and I bought lots of books. From Waterstones, from the sff stall, from another more generalised stall, and from the charity shops. Finds included a book from the Mistressworks wishlist for less than £1. Yay!

In Waterstones, I patrolled the Science Fiction shelves looking for books by women and not finding many. Finally I picked up Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent, by Veronica Roth. Then I wandered over to the history section looking for Michael Foot's history of SOE, which was mentioned a few times in the book about Vera Atkins and SOE I've been reading recently. In particular, Miss Atkins herself was quoted as describing it as being 'as accurate as the Bible'. But I thought to myself, it won't be there anyway. What are the chances? But there it was, in a shiny Bodley Head edition, just republished this year.

It was £18.99. Ouch. But I was able to fill my stampy card and get £10 off. Phew. Funny how that works, though--you buy twenty pounds worth of books to get the last two stamps on the card, then pay off £10 with the card, so you haven't ACTUALLY paid for the twenty-pounds worth that justified you having the two stamps in the first place.

Ouch again. Moving on from existential financial analysis, these are the books:

SOE: 1940-1946 by M.R.D. (Michael) Foot;
Insurgent by Veronica Roth;
Ice! by Tristan Jones;
Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty;
Mutiny!! Aboard H.M. Armed Transport 'Bounty' in 1789 by R.M. Bowker and Lt. William Bligh;
Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers by Jane Robinson;
The Journal of Nicholas the American by Leigh Kennedy (from Mistressworks wishlist);
The Aliens Among Us by James White;
Telepathist by John Brunner (probably already have a copy but 224 miles away);
Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)
and
Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen.

I also bought a non-fiction book from a charity shop but on arriving home I realised a) I already had it and b) it wasn't any good. So that's going straight in the croc box for recycling to another charity shop.

Also when I got home I discovered a proof had arrived from Random House: The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons. What a great thing to come home to--a free book!