My main group of friends all have similar interests when it comes to books and movies. This is great when we want to get together to watch something, and means an “extended library” of sorts for reading material. A few of us take great pleasure in finding second-hand book stores (or anywhere else that sells books) and filling gaps in our collection or starting new sets.
Books are expensive, so there’s also the hope to find places with a range of books at a low price. I don’t have the time or budget of one of my friends, so I’m generally looking for a specific short list of novels. Sometimes, though, you grab what opportunity presents to you…
My mate found someone who had advertised just over 2000 books for A$2000 – fantasy and science-fiction – that they hoped someone would take as one lot. It wasn’t looking like that was going to happen, so the seller had told him to come over to take what he wanted.
It takes a long time to sort through that many books. The two of us spent just over four hours checking each book and putting aside the ones we wanted. I think I got a couple of books only because I saw them first. I can look through books faster than he can, either because I’ve got a better memory for what I’ve got, or a smaller book collection (or because of both) and I was able to put aside anything I knew neither of us wanted. I’m quite sure there’s one book we both took – two copies with different covers.
We filled about 12 bags with books and left a bunch of empty shelves. I’ve come home with 47 books, and my mate claimed 291. I could have taken more, but I didn’t want to spend any more money and they weren’t anything that I really wanted. As it is, I picked three books that I already have. I really need to spend more time scanning all my books into my phone (book manager app) so that I have a complete record of my library. (I wonder how many duplicates my friend choose by mistake!)
So what is in these new books?
Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, CJ Cherryh, Terry Brooks, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, David Brin, Robert Asprin, Eric Frank Russel, Ursula Le Guin, Clifford D Simak, Andre Norton, Piers Anthony, David Robbins, and some Star Wars novels (asst authors).
Most of these I haven’t read before, so I have plenty of reading material to keep me going through the end of the year and my January holidays.
Dragons of Lancasm 