Field Trip!

Some days ago, it was brought to my attention, that one of our Illustrious Cousins (Oliver, age 10) had a desire to visit a used bookstore. Since this is an inclination to be encouraged, I made it a point to take him as soon as possible. 

Thus, on Tuesday, we found ourselves in the Tacoma Book Center, the largest used bookstore in Washington. More than 500,000 books line the shelves, stretching to the ceiling, and in every direction. I know what genres I like, so I spent the majority of my time in children's literature and military history, but we did make sure to go into each room. Oliver picked out a couple books, and I came home with a stack as well: 

(Ignore the top three; I acquired those elsewhere, but didn't want to bother with taking another picture.)

Since the titles are probably a bit hard to read sideways (and because I want to talk about my new books more...), here they are in list format:

1. Three Doctor Doolittle books (The Voyages, The Green Canary, and Doctor Doolittle's Garden.)

2. The Reluctant Dragon—this is not a whole book, but a short story by Kenneth Grahame in Dream Days. I picked up this version because it's illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard! Those of you who know my fascination with Winnie-The-Pooh will understand.

3. The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel, first edition, because of the coolness factor. As if I needed to be more of a book snob...I half wish I was still blissfully unaware of there being such a thing as a first edition. 

4. Captain Blood, my favorite Rafael Sabatini book. There were several Sabatini titles there that I wanted to pick up, but this was at the top of my list, and I was running out of cash...

5. Deep Down, Red Rooney, and The Giant of the North, by R.M. Ballantyne. I've often lamented the fact that while G.A. Henty can be easily found in various hard back and paper back editions, Ballantyne is almost entirely out of print. I was delighted to find these, and would have bought all the Ballantyne titles they had, if my budget had allowed it. 

Well, those are the books I got for myself. I also got Oliver a pictorial encyclopedia of WWII Combat Planes, since we share a fascination with WWII plans. Really cool, with detailed diagrams. 

The best find, though, was something I picked out for our younger kids: two short stories by A. A. Milne which I had never seen or heard of before!! "Prince Rabbit" and "The Princess Who Could not Laugh". For a serious Milne aficionado, this was a stupendous discovery. As with anything written by Milne, they are hilarious.

Most of the books I got this time I've read already and plan to read again, since I'm trying to build up my library with books worth re-reading. Have you read any of these? and if not, what in the world? Get to it!