Book finds

Selecting a Reader by Ted Kooser

... she will thumb

over my poems, then put the book back

up on its shelf. She will say to herself,

"For that kind of money, I can get

my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

I remember this poem from college. It sits in my mind as perfectly as a bookspine on its shelf...

 I went to the Salt Lake City Book Sale, and event on par with Record Day for my husband, and Christmas for my kids. This bi-annual event was even better this time thanks to the labeled shelves and smaller crowds--thank you Friends of SLCL and....rain? I find it totally worth the $12 membership that gets you in the first day for a couple of reasons; it's less crowded (narrow aisles + people + boxes and bags full + shopping carts! are you kidding! who let those in!?), you get first pick before ALL the teachers get there on a mission to beef up their classroom libraries, and I find I am more selective when hardbacks are $2 as opposed to $1--steep prices, I know, but I only have so many shelves and this aids discretion I would otherwise toss out the window.

 I won't bore you with the details of my printed pulp prizes, but I did score a tabbed collegiate dictionary. Apparently, none of the words my children want to write with anymore are to be found in the 3 Children's Dictionaries  we have and the desire to spell a word correctly can't be sustained long enough to search my non-tabbed editon. I aslo found Bullfinch's Mythology (all 3!), and another Complete Works of Shakespeare--arranged chronologically. Oh yes. Good for next year when we are no longer reading Lamb's children's version, but Shakespeare's actual language. I was pleased to mark off several  Ambleside freereads and even a biography of Sir Isaac Newton. Good times, oh yes, good times.