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There’s something about being Far From Home that seems to drive me to book sales. I mean, it isn’t as if the Madison library doesn’t have “Friends of the Library” sales, although I think they’re rather fewer and far between than the monthly ones put on by the Palo Alto Public Library… and probably the selection isn’t as good. But I almost never went to them anyway.

In Tokyo, I once went to the Kinokuniya foreign language paperback sale after a full night of karaoke and a very awkward traditional Japanese breakfast at Denny’s (one of the other foreign exchange students was having personal issues), and, needless to say, no sleep whatsoever. This meant that later in the day, I had to teach two conversational English lessons also on no sleep whatsoever, but I didn’t regret it, because I’d gotten a giant bag of Y500 English fiction, which is no mean feat in Tokyo, where an English novel usually runs about Y1400 (~$12 at the time).

It was in Tokyo that I started reading Terry Pratchett, who I’d been avoiding because I erroneously believed him to be similar to Piers Anthony, and also where I read White Oleander, which I’d been avoiding because it was on Oprah’s Book Club and I am sometimes incongruously snobbish.*

Here in northern California, I think of White Oleander frequently, because the stuff is everywhere. More specifically, as I noted to my sister Hannah after she had checked the online bus schedule for me and determined that the bus I wanted back from the book sale doesn’t run on Sundays, when I see all that oleander, I think of People Whom I Would Like To Poison.

“That must be a long list,” said Hannah.

“You know,” I said. “Some people rate higher than others.”

My father always used to tell us that in Florida (where he grew up), every year a couple of people would die from building campfires with oleander brush, or, in some memorable cases, using oleander sticks to roast weenies. As a child, I was fascinated with poisonous plants. It may have started with the dire warnings I received from my mother about pokeberries, which were a lovely deep wine color and grew in our yard; I was also very interested in belladonna, an indication of my nascent goth tendencies. I thought it would be a good name for a girl.

Anyway, except for having to carry 52 books approximately a mile and a half to the nearest bus stop when it developed that the #88 (which would have taken me within THREE BLOCKS of my house) does not run on Sundays, I would say the book sale was a success. It was a bit picked over, it being the second day, but the second day is also when they let you fill up a grocery bag with books for $5 (or, the woman at the cash drawer tempted me, five bags for $20, but even if the #88 had been running this seemed a bit beyond my means). So I spent $5.50 for nine books at the regular sale, and $5 for 43 in the bargain room:

The regular sale:

1. Browne, Hester - The Little Lady Agency
2. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Lost on Venus
3. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Pirates of Venus
4. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Moon Maid (look, they were $.50 apiece and the covers are HILARIOUS)
5. Hambly, Barbara - Ishmael (a Star Trek novel)
6. McCafferty, Megan - Sloppy Firsts
7. McCaffrey, Anne - Dragonsong
8. McCaffrey, Anne - Dragonsinger
9. McCaffrey, Anne - The Dolphins of Pern (I know this one is going to be fucking terrible, but the former two were treasured texts of my childhood, they were $.50 apiece, AND they have the original trippy art nouveau 70s paperback cover art.)

My grocery bag:

1. Barry, Dave - Dave Barry Does Japan
2. Butler, Octavia - Parable of the Sower
3. Carey, Diane - Star Trek: The Next Generation #1: Ghost Ship
4. Dunning, John - The Bookman’s Wake (rare book seller mystery)
5. Erdrich, Louise - Love Medicine (Already own it, yet couldn’t bear not to buy it. Anybody want it?)
6. Feynman, Richard - “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character
7. Franken, Al - Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
8. Gaitskill, Mary - Two Girls, Fat and Thin (I think this is some kind of modern coming-of-age lesbian non-romance or something.)
9. Gardner, John - The Art of Living and Other Stories (One of the few “literary” pieces from the sale I did not determine would depress me–note I did not buy any Atwood or Piercy.)
10. Heller, Jane - Cha Cha Cha (Looks like early 90s forerunner of chick lit–also the name of one of my favorite cocktails at the Opus Lounge in Madison.)
11. Henegan, James - The Grave (Creepy-looking YA–my favorite kind.)
12. Hess, Joan - Malice in Maggody (Ozarks mystery)
13. Hiaasen, Carl - Tourist Season (I don’t THINK I’ve read this one.)
14. Hillerman, Tony - The Dark Wind (Navajo mystery)
15. Hillerman, Tony - The Fallen Man (more Navajo mystery)
16. Holland, Tom - Supping With Panthers (vampires!)
17. Jance, J.A. - Tombstone Courage (Southwestern mystery, possible Hillerman rip-off)
18. Johansen, Iris - The Ugly Duckling (Frankly, this one may be too trashy even for me, which is saying something, but hey, I had a grocery bag.)
19. Jones, Diana Wynne - Hexwood
20. Kanon, Joseph - Los Alamos (historical mystery)
21. LeGuin, Ursula K. - The Tombs of Atuan (I already own this, in basically the same edition. I just like it so much that I was determined to buy it. Anybody want it?)
22. Loh, Sandra Tsing - Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays from Lesser Los Angeles
23. London, Cait - Hidden Secrets (scary thriller)
24. MacAvoy, R.A. - The Book of Kells
25. McCrumb, Sharyn - The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (Appalachian mystery)
26. McInerney, Jay - Bright Lights, Big City (apparently Michael J. Fox was in the film)
27. Moore, Christopher - Island of the Sequined Love Nun (I just read the one about the Death Merchants recently and enjoyed it; haven’t read this one yet.)
28. Muller, Marcia & Bill Pronzini - Beyond the Grave (genre mystery)
29. Nord-Sud Japan - Little Polar Bear: Boku no Daisuki
30. Nord-Sud Japan - Little Polar Bear: Boku no Tomodatchi (these two are small cardboard children’s books in Japanese, at just about my reading level)
31. Oliver, Anthony - The Pew Group (English mystery)
32. Parker, Robert B. - A Catskill Eagle (one of my favorite Spenser novels)
33. Parker, Robert B. - The Widening Gyre (a decent Spenser novel)
34. Reichert, Mickey Zucker - The Beasts of Barakhai (It has been less than four hours and I cannot figure out why I picked this up. I guess it was the kitsch value of “grad student in strange fantastic new–but not D&D; it is not the 80s anymore–world.”)
35. Rosenberg, Joel - The Sleeping Dragon (Apparently the early 80s spawned a great demand for trashy fantasy novels in which college students were transported into their D&D games–as I recall, there was even that cartoon.)
36. Rothenberg, Rebecca - The Shy Tulip Murders (Can you tell this one is a mystery?)
37. Seinfeld, Jerry - SeinLanguage (I read this one while waiting for the #88 bus home, which it turns out does not run on Sundays.)
38. Simpson, Mona - Anywhere But Here
39. Shankman, Sarah - Now Let’s Talk of Graves (another obvious mystery)
40. Stacey, Susannah - Body of Opinion (English mystery)
41. Thomas, Ross - Missionary Stew (”political comic thriller,” okay)
42. White, T.H. - The Once and Future King (Admittedly, my father did read this to me when I was a child, but I still don’t think it ought to have been shelved next to How to Draw a Disney Princess.)
43. Winokur, Jon (ed.) - The Portable Curmudgeon

Fortunately, my rented room came with some shelves.

—

*Really. I mean, you should see some of the OTHER stuff that I read.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 10th, 2006 at 8:11 pm and is filed under conversations, crass materialism, books, quotes, California, lists, media, family, musings, places, Japan, mundane happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.