Filed under: AwesomeSauce, Bookworm, Phoenix Booksale, Proof that I'm a Nerd, There and Back Again
Click here for The Booksale: Part 1
After spending the night sleeping in the parking lot, and the morning jostling with other booksale attendees, HRH and I finally made it to the check-out line. I had given myself a budget of $200 with $5 dollars leeway. I had a cart full of 94 books and, to be honest, I was a bit nervous about it. The last time I’d done an estimate of the price of my cart-o-books I was at about $150, and I had picked up several armfuls of books since that count. I crossed my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut as the volunteer manning the check-out line calculated the damage.
Him: “How does one hundred eighty-eight dollars sound?”
I opened one eye. I did a double-take of his face to see if he was serious or not.
Me: “ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT!? Are you serious!? That sounds like a steal! As in, I literally made out like a bandit!” I then started a little happy dance, which, if you know me very well, is a rarity. I don’t dance in public, and I define “public” as anywhere outside of my bathtub. But 94 books for $188? That is dance-worthy. HRH and I hauled our purchases out to the parking lot and saw the line that had grown exponentially.
This is reason enough to sleep in the parking lot. That line snakes back and forth eight times, and each fold is about a quarter-mile long. No, thank you.
We loaded up the Tahoe and headed back to my brother’s house, giggling about our purchases and comparing notes. This year’s sale was one for the record books. As I pulled into my brother’s driveway I wondered how on earth we were going to get everything into our suitcases to bring home. I mean, we had planned well, we each had a carry on stuffed into a larger suitcase and I had another duffel bag crammed in there as well. What had started out as two checked bags between the two of us ballooned into four checked bags and a ridiculously heavy carry on, each weighing in at just under 50 pounds.
All our bags arrived safely back in Salt Lake City–although they were all opened and searched en route. I’m sure the checking agents aren’t accustomed to seeing an unreadable luggage scan due to a triple armload of hardbacks. I swear! It’s just books! Lots and lots and LOTS of books! I piled them up on my table, still unsure of where they will all live. (Although, a surprise birthday bookcase from a friend is greatly reducing the stress of that particular problem. Love you J!!)
The Loot, or How I’ll Be Spending My Time Until 2018
A Bridge for Passing, Pearl S. Buck
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain
A Night in the Cemetery, Anton Chekhov
A Treasury of Hans Christen Andersen
Aesop’s Fables
All The King’s Men¸Warren Robert Penn
Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen
Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
Bednobs and Broomstick, Mary Norton
Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of Destiny, Benazir Bhutto
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Captain Horatio Hornblower, C.S. Forester
Classic French Fairy Tales, Grabianski
Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cousin Bette, Honore de Balzac
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
Dragon Seed, Pearl S. Buck
Dry., Augusten Burroughs
Fighting Angel, Pearl S. Buck
Five Little Peppers, Margaret Sidney
Folk and Fairy Tales for Boys and Girls
Hans Brinker, Mary Mapes Dodge
Henry Esmond, William Thackery
Howards End, E.M. Forster
In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner
Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
King, Queen, Nave, Vladimir Nabokov
Lectures on Russian Literatures, Vladimir Nabokov
Lonely Planet: Africa on a Shoestring
Lonely Planet: Beijing
Lonely Planet: Great Britain
Lonely Planet: India
Lonely Planet: Ireland
Lonely Planet: London
Mandala, Pearl S. Buck
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
Memoirs, Elie Wiesel
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Modern Magic: Five Stories by Louisa May Alcott
Moliere, Tartuff
Nabokov, Novels 1955-1962, Vladimir Nabokov
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
Once Upon a Time: A treasure of modern fairy tales, del Rey & Kessler
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Mark Twain
Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
Say You’re One of Them, Uwen Akpan
Selected Writing of Washington Irving, Washington Irving
Show Boat, Edna Ferber
Sula, Toni Morrison
Tender Is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Adventures of Robin Hood, Paul Creswick
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
The Bridge Over The River Kwai, Pierre Boulle
The Castle, Franz Kafka
The Collected Works of Anton Chekov
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (vol 1)
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (vol 2)
The First American: Ben Franklin, H.W. Brands
The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo
The Indispensable Faulkner, Malcolm Cowley
The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery
The Lodger Shakespeare, Charles Nicholl
The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
The Possessed, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Romanovs, Ian Grey
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov
The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike
The Woman in White¸ Wilkie Collins
Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut
Truman Capote, George Plimpton
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
Walden and Other Writings, Henry David Thoreau
We Were the Milvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
What Men Live By, Leo Tolstoy
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now, Maya Angelou
I will be reading indefinitely to catch even attempt to start all of these books. Some I have read before, I suppose, and some I may only read portions of but purchased anyway because they were pretty (do you see that chunk of leather-bound books in the photo? Yeah, $2.00 each. I couldn’t say no.) But I’d love to hear if you loved or hated anything on this list, tell me where to start with these babies!
**If you’re the kind to count, this is not all 94 books, this is about eighty-something books. I brought home a few as gifts and those are not included here because I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
24 Comments so far
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Completely and totally awesome. Great haul!
Comment by Britt 2011 February 17 @ 8:43 amWow! I am jealous! Especially of the leather bound volumes. But you could put A History of Toenails, Vols. 1-6 in leather binding, and I’d covet it just because it’s pretty.
You have some of my favorites in there: Middlesex, Mansfield Park, Tartuffe, and Northanger Abbey.
Comment by Stacy 2011 February 17 @ 9:35 amI hate Middlesex.It was pretty disgusting. I shouldn’t have read it. I think that’s the only one I’ve read. Oh! And Aesop’s Fables. Fables are cool.
Nothing by Roald Dahl? What a bummer. Ha ha!
Comment by Britt 2011 February 17 @ 9:41 amThe Roald Dahl’s are actually pretty hard to come by. Either they aren’t donated in the first place, or are scooped up in the first few minutes of the sale. I have a solid Dahl collection already on my bookshelves, so I’m not complete without.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 11:59 amI’m curious, where in the heck do all the books come from? Are they toss outs from libraries? Donations?
Comment by Stephanie 2011 February 17 @ 10:07 amThey are all donated throughout the year in the Phoenix metropolitan area. All the proceeds from the booksale go to children’s literacy funds and other literacy programs. There are drop-boxes all over the valley for people to donate.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 12:00 pmWinesburg, Ohio has been on my “to read” list for about five years. I read the first few chapters back in college and LOVED them, but I’ve never gotten around to finishing the book.
Also, The Little Prince is a DARNED good read.
Comment by SR Braddy 2011 February 17 @ 10:09 amReally? I’d never heard of it, but I liked the binding and figured no one would go to the trouble of embossing a fabric cover with leather and gold if it wasn’t worth something. Right? Now I’m excited to start it.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 12:01 pmEven though it’s not her best, Sula is my favorite Toni Morrison. I love that book. Contrary to Britt (love you, Britt!) I enjoyed Middlesex. There are some weird spots but also, surprisingly, quite a bit of history I didn’t know. (Not surprising I didn’t know it, but surprising because I didn’t expect it to be there.) We were the Mulvaneys is one of my favorite Joyce Carol Oates, although not #1 (That would be Foxfire: Confessions of an all-girl Gang). Loved the Bill Brysons you got, too!
I do have to say, though. I think you skipped the poetry section.
Comment by Amy So 2011 February 17 @ 10:22 amCan you believe that there isn’t actually a poetry section!? That is an oversight, I feel.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 12:02 pmWOW!! Your selections are fantastic!!! I don’t know where I would start, but I will say that I luuurrrve Somerset Maugham and “Of Human Bondage” is one of the top five books of all for me. I’m one of those people who can’t pick a Favorite, but I have a Top Five.
And here’s what I love about book-talk: I will respectfully disagree with one of my fellow commenters here and say that I found “Middlesex” really sincere, compelling, and enjoyable.
Comment by Kim 2011 February 17 @ 10:23 amI read “Theatre” by Maugham and loved it. So when I saw some more by him I scooped them up! I’m excited to start them!
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 12:14 pmOmg this booksale sounds like my idea of heaven. A huge warehouse, filled to the brim with cheap, used books? They must have something like this on the east coast too?!
Comment by 100 Degrees and No A/C 2011 February 17 @ 10:52 amI hope so, because it is perhaps the mots amazing weekend of my life.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 17 @ 12:14 pmMy kinda sale! I really enjoyed Infidel. That book is bad ass.
Comment by Stacey 2011 February 17 @ 12:57 pmI loved Middlesex. One of my favorite books. I love Jeffrey Eugenides.
Sexy, sexy books.
Comment by Lovestrong 2011 February 17 @ 1:22 pmseriously that amazing. they’re all so pretty! and i don’t think i’ve read a single one, haha. but yay books, have fun reading
Comment by katelin 2011 February 17 @ 6:30 pmINCREDIBLE!!! You seriously amaze and inspire me! I love all of the beautiful leather bound books.
Just right off the bat, Cole LOVED Notes from a Small Island. I love anything Lonely Planet. Good work girl. What a steal of a deal!
Comment by Vanessa 2011 February 17 @ 7:02 pmWhat a fantastic haul! You should open your own personal public library.
Comment by Allie 2011 February 17 @ 8:25 pmi have a love/hate relationship with books. LOVE to read them (and check them out of the library–REFUSE to get a Kindle…I prefer actual page-turning), but as often as I move…HATE carrying those boxes of books. god bless movers!
quite the haul there! congrats!
Comment by runny babbit 2011 February 18 @ 1:34 amWow it’s the mother load!
Comment by grungedandy 2011 February 18 @ 7:44 amAt least you’ll never be bored!
Have fun remember to eat & sleep as well as pop you head out of the book or we’ll send out a missing persons report!
Seeya Hugya *G*
Not to burst your bubble, but an awful lot of those books are public domain. Time for a Kindle, huh?
Comment by mliss 2011 February 25 @ 2:31 pmYeeeah, no. I’m not really into the whole e-book reader thing in lieu of actual paper-and-ink books. I prefer the books.
xox
Comment by heidikins 2011 February 25 @ 2:35 pmI came across your blog, and loved your FLW pictures and this book list. awesome. Somerset Maugham is a favorite.
And I couldn’t help but notice you had a lot of Russians on that list (this is what prompted me to buck up and write a comment instead of silently slinking through like I normally do with blogs). I have a weird and inexplicable love of Russian stuff (the tsars, the composers, the communists, the authors, all of it). Just in case you haven’t seen it, I just read this and found it super enjoyable: http://www.amazon.com/Possessed-Adventures-Russian-Books-People/dp/0374532184
Comment by Beth 2011 March 7 @ 9:19 pm