Book Haul

Yesterday, I went to a book sale at a Unitarian church in St. Paul. $1 for hardcovers and trade paperbacks, $.50 for smaller paperbacks. Gotta love those Unitarians!

I came away with:

• Three Barbara Kingsolver novels (I've only read one of her novels, plus Animal Vegetable Miracle, and have been meaning to read more).
• A boxed paperback set of Stephen Jay Gould's natural history titles, The Panda's Thumb, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, and The Flamingo's Smile. I accidentally got an additional copy of The Flamingo's Smile because I didn't look closely enough at the boxed set to realize it was already included. I've always wanted to read his books after admiring his essays in Discover magazine, but have never gotten around to it.
  
• My very own copy of Bill Maher's When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden.
• A compilation of The Borrowers, which I read as a child.
• They All Laughed, NPR Science Friday's Ira Flatow's essays about important inventions that everyone thought were dead-ends.
• A hysterically funny 1975 Judith Viorst version of The Night Before Christmas (To a Liberated Household).
• Shadow Baby by local young adult novelist Alison McGhee.
• Michael Cunningham's The Hours.
• A history of the Irish potato famine called The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith. I don't know anything about the book specifically, but have always wanted to know more about the topic.
• A reprint of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I have never read, but which was one of my mother's favorites while she was growing up.
• Avi's Newbery honor book Nothing But the Truth (my daughter hates the book, but I thought I'd see what I thought of it).
• A quirky little picture book written and illustrated by Robert Quackenbush called Danger in Tibet: A Miss Mallard Mystery. The illustrations and hand lettering are very appealing.
  
• And finally, the most exciting of all -- at least to me -- A Dictionary of Mythical Places by Robin Palmer, but more importantly, illustrated by one of my favorites, Richard Cuffari. I'll be writing soon about Cufffari's work and include some images from the book.

I will admit I bought a number of paperbacks, which I usually would not, but my general rule is that when books are cheap, as they were at this sale, I'll buy them. If I really like them, later on I'll pick up a hardcover copy and give away or sell the paperback.