And free chocolate, too…
A really good haul on the cheap/second-hand book front today. Off I go to the Big Shopping Metropolis to do tedious errands. A trip which is never complete without the opportunity to browse in Borders. By the time I tore myself away I had constructed at least two speculative three-for-two purchases consisting of the following books:
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- A Hundred and One Days by Asne Seierstad
- Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly
- With Their Backs to the World also by Asne Seierstad
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I need to point out that I didn’t actually buy a single one of these, oh no. What I actually bought was hidden right at the back of the store on another sort of discount table. It was James M Cain’s novel Mildred Pierce in the Crime Masterworks imprint.
Now, the more observant among the audience will recall that the 1945 film version of Mildred Pierce, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, is more or less the film that defines noir. And I recently read Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon in the same edition. It was wonderful, so this was a no-brainer especially as there were a lot of these Crime Masterworks books on special offer. It was one of those things you have to buy when you see, or never find it again. And then I went to pay for it and the assistant said: “Would you like a chocolate bar?” And I looked at her in some surprise and said “Would I like a chocolate bar? Of course I would like a chocolate bar…” So now I have a (still uneaten) funsize Galaxy Ripple and Borders is suddenly giving away free chocolate with its books. And where is the bad in this, I ask you?
On the way home now and it won’t hurt just to have a quick look in Oxfam where I found a copy of a late Aurelio Zen novel by Michael Dibdin – And Then You Die – one of very few Zen novels Mr Random doesn’t already own. That young man was also regretting Bookcrossing his copy of Iain M Banks’ Dead Air so the fact there was a copy of that on sale was very welcome especially since I was regretting letting him Bookcross it without reading it first myself. These were rounded off with a copy of The Time Out Book of London Short Stories with contributions from such luminaries as Julie Burchill, Neil Gaiman (him again), Nick Hornby and Will Self.
So three second-hand books for less than the price of one new paperback. I’d like to think there’s a moral in there somewhere – but I know there’s not.
Because I will now feel I am karmically owed all the books on the above list and buy them as a three-for-two the very next time I go into a bookshop offering them.
And I did a fair bit of writing on the train journey to the Big Shopping Metropolis and back. See? Everybody wins.
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As you may observe my cosmic guilt at buying more books has lifted since I started the LiveJournal 50 Book Challenge. I am now reading all my past purchases at Quite a Rate and so will soon need more books. That’s what I tell myself, at any rate.