Fruit of the Bookhouse

Since 1976, the Book House has offered used books in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis, along the edge of the University of Minnesota campus. It's one of those quintessential college places -- full of so many academically oriented books, you feel like your head will explode if you see one more piece of knowledge you'll never learn.


The basement, home to sections on sociology, Marxism, military history, women's studies and more religions than I care to think about, is looking marvelous. It's well-lighted, dry and pleasant (unlike any other used bookstore basement I can recall).


My biggest finds were these two Cynthia Harnett books, to go with my other three. I'm getting close to a complete set of her works.


Not quite as exciting, but I've never read the final book Madeleine L'Engle wrote about the Murray-O'Keefe clan. Plus, it has a cover by the illustrator Trina Schart Hyman (subject of a post I haven't managed to write yet).


I couldn't resist these 1950s-era geography and science texts, which used to belong to the Leroy-Ostrander Public School.


It should be fun (perhaps painful fun) to read all the pithy details about the peoples of the world, as understood 60 years ago.

I also found a 1980 paperback called ShrinkLits, by Maurice Sagoff, featuring "seventy of the world's towering classics cut down to size" -- poetically, too!

If his opening lines for Beowulf are any indication, it will be an enjoyable read:

Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish
Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.