Friday

I went to a book sale a couple of weekends ago. I lurve books sales. So many titles for so little money. You really have to love $1 hard backs. Where else are you going to find Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in with the travel books – Although an argument could be made as to whether or not it could be read as a travel log and if you were really into cross references, it could also be under pharmaceutical books as well, it is narcotic reference book albeit with more of a narrative than you find in more traditional drug reference books.

This sale was a fund raiser and space free-er upper for a small library in a smallish town, the sale I go to in Raleigh is much larger and has more books but has less over all quality available. Never in a million years would I have been able to find a all-but-pristine A Painted House for a dollar? Well, Amazon had it for a penny but add s+h and it’s going to be well over a dollar and even used at the Raleigh sale, it would be more than that if I was able to find it all. Stuff like that goes in the first ten minutes on the first day. For more than a dollar, thank you very much, of course, by Sunday afternoon they are paying people to haul books out but you have to ask yourself, how many romance novels do you really need?

But how many people really need a book detailing a man’s odyssey through India in search of a mythical pink-headed duck? but I did. So who am I to look askance at people who collect romance novels? They may very well make good eating or maybe they are put to use as insulation or as an alternative fuel source. Who knows? Now, Detective Novels on the other hand are, those should be bought in bulk and stock piled.

Back to my book sale booty. I picked up a couple of paperback detective novels to be sure, I mean, how could I not? I think it’s a rule or something, but I also looked through the hard cover books. True, hardcover detective novels but, I strayed.

I was looking at the titles and not seeing anything I needed, even for a dollar when I saw a name I recognized Rube Goldberg. “Hmm, didn’t he invent a better mouse trap or something? is this is his Autobiography. It’s kind of little, I didn’t realize he died young.” And then I read the rest of the title I made My Bed… . “Oh”. Hmm. I decided to bring it home. And it was old, even older than I am as I am merely a collectible, it’s an antique. And after I came home and finally really looked at, a first edition. I looked around online and I don’t think there was a second edition.

I read a little of it and decided Mr. Goldberg should have stuck to his inventions. But I’m going to take good care of his book.