Monday, April 30, 2007

A good bookshop




I'm lucky in that there are quite a few used book shops in my area, though I have scoured most of them pretty well. One I like to stop into every few months is Magers & Quinn. They sell used and new books and shelve them together. I've found quite a few Viragos there, both the older ones from the 80's as well as newer editions. In fact, they have so many newer Viragos, as well as other books printed in the UK, that I'm thinking they must order them on purpose.

I picked up these books on my last trip there. I was pleased to find:

The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy - Persephone publishes her novel Ruben Sachs and I was thrilled to find this.

Cullum by E. Arnot Robertson
The Unlit Lamp by Radclyffe Hall

Both of these are 80s Viragos, both in unread, pristine condition, and both found on different clearance carts priced at $1. How many more of these lovely books are sitting on clearance carts somewhere? I hope I find them before they are tossed away.

Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann - A 2000 Virago publication and looks like a wonderful story.

The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay - A 2002 Virago publication.

Tree of Angels by Penny Sumner - I don't know a thing about this except it was published in the UK and looks like a family saga beginning in Russia and moving to London.

Bookmooch and paperbackswap have brought me:

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

Fanny Burney by Claire Harman - I've meant to read Burney and have never quite gotten to it. I do love a good biography though, and this looks to be entertaining.

I am currently reading The Observations and enjoying it. It turned out to be just what I was looking to read over this past weekend when I was back and forth to work.

I'm off to THE MALL today, yes, I mean The Mall of America. A bit embarrassing really, that it's the biggest tourist attraction in the state, but it is the closest shopping center to me and I have some things to return.

4 comments:

StuckInABook said...

I keep meaning to read Dusty Answer - in fact, it's even got as far as coming on holiday with me a couple of times... maybe it will happen this Summer.

Tara said...

For me, it's a pretty big deal, a book being brought on a trip! I hope you do get to it this Summer, and I hope I do, too.

nutmeg said...

I have Dusty Answers on my sidebar at the moment. I bought it because it was referred to together with I Capture the Castle and Love in a Cold Climate (both of which I have read and loved) over at the Persephone webiste. I would like to ge to it soon.

Ps. I am known as anothernutter (one word)over at librarything.com - I have about 450 of books so far with probably about another 500 to come.

Pps. the biggest attraction of The Book Depository for us in Australia is the free shipping - the prices of the books are also cheaper too. Win-win situation really :-)

Tara said...

Nutmeg, I remember the Persephone reference regarding Dusty Answers and well.

Thanks for the info about your librarything name. I'm trying to decide if I want to pay the membership fee over there to go over 200 books, which I reached easily.