Every fall the Austin Public Library holds its “Monster Book Sale” and every year, since we met, the Mancunian and I have gone. The sale used to be held in the basement of the old Palmer Auditorium, only a couple of blocks from our house. So we’d walk over there several times during the weekend and buy as many books as we could carry home. The price is right: $2.00 for hardbacks, $1.00 for paperbacks and after 2PM on Sunday $2.00 for a box of books and $1.00 for a bag of books. The books are generally old library books. In more recent years, the number of non-library, used books is increasing.
Something has changed in the last six years. Either the books are less interesting or I’ve become more discriminating. I remember the first year I went how carefully I looked at every book on every table. Today, I hardly found anything interesting. The garden section was small and already picked over by the time I arrived. There were no old Nancy Drew books in the children’s section. There were no Japanese books in the language section. Finally, just before I decided to go home without buying anything, I found some Japanese books in the Social Sciences section.
- Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings. Edward S. Morse. (originally published 1885) Reprinted 1961. $1.00!!!
- Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays. Bill Holm. $1.00. (I bought this book ten years ago and gave it away. I was glad to find it again.)
- Meeting With Japan. Fosco Maraini. 1959. (An Italian living in Japan, and interred there, during World War II). $2.00.