Sunday Salon: Used Book Sales 2013

Sunday Salon

Hello, everyone!

It’s been a bookish week for me. I read finished four books this week: Unnatural Creatures stories selected by Neil Gaiman, Soulless vol. 2 by Gail Carriger and REM, Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger, and Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella (review up tomorrow). I also bought some books.

It’s used book sale season! Even though I made a resolution to not buy any more books with one exception, I still had to hit my favourite used book sale yesterday and one last thursday. I went looking for the exception: food and cookbooks. In addition to seemingly collect yarn, pens, and paper, I’ve been building a big cookbook collection the last two years. As well as cookbooks, I was looking for any travel books.

On Thursday, I went to a book sale and got four beauties:

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The Food Matters Cookbook: 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living – An almost new Mark Bittman hardcover book for $6? Yes, please.
Festive Baking: Holiday Classics in the Swiss, German, and Austrian Traditions – Not pictured because I have already loaned it to a friend. I really like regional and international cookbooks, and good ones are hard to find. I also love baking especially in countries known for their baked goods.
Complete Baking: With Over 400 Recipes for Pies, Tarts, Buns, Etc. – A British baking book which has a lot of photos, but unlike the other books on this list, mixed reviews. I did get it mainly for the sheer number of photos including things on how to make a lattice crust or ways to flute the pie edges, etc.
The Chocolate and Coffee Bible Cookbook – I love chocolate, but I do not really cook or bake with it that often. I don’t always go for the chocolate or coffee flavour. I did love that this book has a thorough history section and lots of colour photos.

The sale from yesterday is one I’ve been going to for years.

No Travel, rather slim bookings for food so I only managed to score five:

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The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food – I have the library’s version at home which I can now return, and I know I like Gopnik’s writing. Great condition, looks unread.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life – My favourite Kingsolver book and one of the best food and smallholding farm memoirs. Definitely something I would reread when I get my country home one day.
The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics – Big, has some decent photos, and not badly reviewed.
The Cook’s Book of Everything – I don’t know anything about Lulu Grimes, but this book is huge. Cookbooks are becoming a value for money thing for me.
Thai Cooking Made Easy– Not pictured because I loaned it to my mom. This a bilingual English/Chinese cookbook which is not that common these days. It is a thin book, but looks very good. Being Asian (published in Taiwan) means the flavours are more authentic. Amazon reviews indicated likewise which yay!

You know you have too many books when shopping for more books, you get confused about which books you already own. Fiction:

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The Magus – This is a favourite of a friend. He has good taste so I’ve been looking to read this book for a few years now. This is the revised version apparently.
North and South – Gaskell love. I was a bit confused for a bit if I owned this already, but glad I picked it up since this one of the few Gaskells I don’t have.
Madame Bovary – I’m going to read this in French and English, but I couldn’t resist such a nice trade paperback edition of it.
The Gathering – A Booker Prize winner. I know this has had mixed reviews. Reading the back, it looks like a typical sad but well written Booker winner.
Middlemarch – Basically with every classic I picked up, I kept asking myself I had it already. Pretty sure I don’t have this, but I plan on reading more Eliot after I read Floss last summer.
The Leopard: A Novel – I love this book and will definitely reread it in the future.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years) – This has very mixed reviews, but I picked it up impulsively because I was considering Broadway shows.
The Longest Journey – One of the few Forster’s I haven’t read, but this book is very overlooked. I’ll have to find out why.

Total for two sales: 17 books. Yikes, and they aren’t small books either, but all of the above books were around $30.

That’s set me for the summer and beyond until at least Boxing Day book sales.

Have you bought any new books lately?

Have a great week!

6 thoughts on “Sunday Salon: Used Book Sales 2013

  • jessicabookworm

    I haven’t bought any new books recently, I am really trying to resist so I can get down my TBR piles. Looks like you got a great haul of goodies though. Happy reading 🙂

    Reply
    • athena (Post author)

      Hello! I’ve tried resisting, but books are so addictive. I’ve been quite good this year up to now, and I can resist until Boxing Day at least. Have a great week!

      Reply
  • Geoff W

    Oh can’t wait to see what you have to say about Wicked. Gregory Maguire came to a book group I was involved with and it was great to ask him questions about the series and his other books. One thing to note, the ending is not the same as the show and I actually preferred the books (and so does GM actually, but he gave his consent to the show’s ending :-D).

    Reply
    • athena (Post author)

      Hi Geoff! It’s good that you like the book because I’ve heard mixed things about the book. I don’t think I will watch the show so it won’t bother me either way. Thanks for spurring me on with regard to the book though!

      Reply
    • athena (Post author)

      Hello Tanya! This was only my third and fourth time buying books this year. I may have another on off until Boxing Day, but I can be quite good about the book buying. I have almost no space for them now! Thanks for the comment!

      Reply

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