thelittledog | Recent Acquisitions Part I

Today was the Friends of the Library Book Fair. Usually when I go I end up in the last hour (All fiction half price! All the books you can fit in a bag $5!) and mostly buy books because they're cheap and I might read them or something. One day. This year I wanted to go a bit earlier. Not at 9 am when it opened (too busy) but I was aiming for 10 am. I ended up there about ten minutes before that. Still busy, but not too crowded. I ended up with two bags of interesting books, well three but that third one just had one large book in it.

Two books on Australian English because they could be useful. These were the first two books I picked up, at the point where you want Something but you're not sure you'll find something you actually want. Books picked up at this stage are often put back on the table when better books are found later but these two stayed. I think they'll be useful. The top one is rather detailed. The bottom one seems more general, and is ex-high school library. I should read the first I guess.

Catch 22 is rather well-read but it was only $2 and I didn't have a copy.

The Things They Cannot Say looks interesting. The cover description (it's a bit long for a subtitle) says "Stories soldiers won't tell you about what they've seen, done or failed to do in war". After looking at it on Goodreads, it looks even more interesting. I picked it up and put it back because I know I'll never get around to reading it, but then picked it up again. Because I want to read it.

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind used to be on my wishlist but I took it off because... long moment of hesitation while I tried to remember if I'd obtained a copy or decided there were other books I wanted more. I was fairly sure it was the latter. And it's a very thick book. Surely I'd remember having it. Anyway, there it was and for just $3. So now I have a copy.

The Maria Island book came from my sister when I met her afterwards but it was acquired today. (She found it in another book she bought. Thought I might like it.)

The Sherlock Holmes book was on the biography table. So I did what everyone else probably did, glanced at it and moved on. Then I noticed the author. See, the only Holmes books I have are a cheap paperback of the Adventures of... and a nice but battered paperback of the Hound of the Baskervilles. A neat little hardcover with dust jacket full of stories I hadn't read? For $1? Mine! I didn't notice the text on the cover until later. It's a facsimile copy of the original newspaper text including illustration. A very nice little book.

The blurb on the back of Titanic says "Read how a paper, and the world, struggled to find and report the truth of the most disastrous maritime accident in history". The "cutting" on the cover says: The Titanic sank at 2.20 this morning. No lives were lost. On the back: Steamers are towing the Titanic and endeavouring to get her into the shoal water near Cape Race, for the purpose of beaching her. An interesting approach to the topic, and anyway, a girl can't have too many Titanic books. Really.

I picked up another copy of Master and Commander with the idea of trying to reduce the number of different editions.