A good problem to have

I have read quite a few books this year. I read quite a few last year too. Not as many as this year though. Knowing that I would at least be keeping up with last years pace, I had planned on keeping track of how many books I read this year, and then doing some sort of year-end recap post. I was also going to make a list of what I had read and possibly make a worst to best list. 

Unfortunately, I've found out that I'm not very good at keeping track of those kinds of statistics, so there won't be any such post (this is where the sad faced emoji goes). I do know that I read five books in each month of January, February, and March. I also know that I read ten books during two different summer months. That's 35 right there, but after that I don't know. Based on how many other things that I didn't do this year, i.e. blog very often, sort cards, watch too many movies, reorganize my neglected stamp collection, etc.; I'll go ahead and assume that I did at least five books a month during the rest of the time that I wasn't keeping track as well.

As of this writing, Dec.7th, I've only just finished my first book of the month, so it looks like December might end up being a down month. Trading cards are most likely going to be responsible for this, as I've already spent six hours over the last seven days putting cards in binders. I have done almost no sorting this year, and because of that have stacks and stacks of cards piled around, some more precariously than others. It's been kind of therapeutic to do this again, but I'm doing it at night, which is when I read, and I'm already missing that time spent reading. I fear that not all of my stacks are going to get finished.

Reading is a good way to spend ones time, but unless you live close to a library, having enough reading material can sometimes be a problem. I was really having trouble doing so earlier this year, often times only having 2-3 books to choose from at any one given time. Thankfully though, I'm closing out the year strong with book purchases galore. I've been doing good on my own, but also got a recent assist from my mom as well.

There was a big semi-local book sale a few weeks back, one that I was going to attend. There was some stuff that needed to be done on that particular morning, which was gonna keep me from getting there when it opened, thus potentially missing out on some of the better items. And this is where mom comes in! She was there when it opened, and over the course of the next hour or two, sent a bunch of pictures via text asking if I was interested in various things, some of which I was...

I had this book many years ago. Ironically it was donated to a book sale. What comes around, goes around?

Anybody know the answer to this books title without looking it up?

There were about half a dozen different Cardinals books at this sale, but this was the only that I asked my mom to grab.

I have the "Boys of Summer", but have never read any of Roger Kahn's other works, so this'll probably be a good gauge as to whether or not I do ever want to try any more.

Old library book...

You don't need a synopsis to figure out what this one's all about.

Another old library book...

... albeit a much more interesting one!

This book covers every major leagues roster up until 1973. I haven't encountered a book like this before, and while it would've been much more impressive in the pre-internet age, I'm sure that I'll still be able to find some things of note. Might even be able to get a blog post out of it? Does anyone ever read non-fiction books out of order? I do all the time, and will be doing so again with this one when I jump ahead a hundred pages to start with the Federal League stats.

Sample page.

In addition to all of the books, there was also a lot of other forms of media represented at this sale, so I got pictures of those sections sent to me as well.

I started off the post with some stats, sort of, and while I don't have any numbers to back it up, I'm pretty sure I bought the least amount of videos and DVD's this year, than any other year in my adult life. My interest in such things hasn't diminished, it just seems like they're not as prevalent as they used to be anymore, especially videos. The Book Cellar stopped taking videos this year, and one of the local thrift stores stopped as well. I've heard people in other areas reporting the same thing, so I know it's not just a here thing. I will be an unhappy camper when the time comes where I can no longer find used videos to peruse.

I think I may have seen this episode when it originally aired, but won't know for sure until I watch it. This is a 3-tape set by the way, not something that you encounter very often.

I don't care about newer Titanic books or television specials, but won't turn down an older 90's piece.

It's funny how many things around here you can find with old McKay's stickers on them. They haven't sold videos for awhile, so I always leave those stickers on. The ones on books go though.

I haven't seen this since it's original airing. I remember not being crazy about it at the time, but 20+ years may have changed my opinion. Like I mentioned earlier, I haven't been watching as much stuff as I usually do, so even the things I'm looking forward to, usually end up taking me a couple of months to get to.

A 90's cable favorite.

I used to always find copies of this at the Value Village in Vancouver, WA, but had seen it enough times that I didn't buy any of those copies at the time. Fast forward a decade (maybe a little more), and I haven't watched again in all of that time, and am now taking a chance on a very beat up copy. 

Given how many items my mom found, and how late in the day it was getting, I didn't end up going to the sale myself. I saw what was available from a few other sections, which didn't contain anything else for me, and really, all I missed out on was possibly wandering through the history section (too many books to send detailed photos of), and I'm okay with that. There's no shortage of history books at just about any place that sells books. I will be going next year though.

I'm not lucky enough to live near one of those Dollar Tree's that has all of the great movies and television show seasons on DVD and Blu-Ray, but up until the corona got going, the nearest store did get some decent books on a fairly regular basis. It's been pretty spotty for the last two years though, and not just on books, the store itself seems to be struggling to get much of anything, well, anything but junk food. With junk food not being my thing, I haven't had much occasion to go as of late, and as such, have only been going in there about every 3-6 months. It had been on the upper end of that estimate before I got the urge to go last week. There were still a lot of empty shelves in there, but to my surprise to book section looked pretty well stocked, and wouldn't you know it, I found a book!

And here's what I just finished reading, my one book for December so far. I didn't realize that it wasn't written by a Brit, and starts off in Britain, so with me not being an anglophile it took a little effort to get into it. Ultimately I'm glad that I stuck with it though, it wasn't perfect, but was definitely worth a buck.

Seeing as how I was right there, I couldn't not go into the Serenity Thrift that's right next door... 

Hey, another book! At over 850 pages, this is one chunky MF'er. I'm really looking forward to this one, but probably won't start to tackle until January.

I was also in Crossville last week too, and even though I was just there 2 or 3 weeks ago, I made quick stop at the Book Cellar to see if anything new had come in. Turns out that quite a bit of new stuff had been brought in during those couple weeks.

I know from past posts that there aren't a lot of X-Files fans coming around here, so I didn't bother with of the backs. This was an exciting haul for me though, especially since I've never even seen two of these on the secondary market before.

I've been on a big film novelization kick in recent months. 70's and 80's examples are of particular interest to me. I haven't seen Cocoon for a couple of decades, so I doubt I'll even notice any of the differences that usually find in novelizations with this one.

I always seem to be ending my physical media posts with Scholastic book. You might be complaining about that, but I'm certainly not.

I may have started last year low on books to choose from, but have closed it out with a glutton of purchases to restock my options during the first few months of the coming new year. And I'm still gonna try to hit McKay's one more this later this month too. Don't worry though, this'll be the last post of it's kind for the year, I promise!

B is for books (and other things)

Continuing with my "flurry" of activity from a couple of weeks ago, today's post sees me going to one of the only events that I've come to look forward to on yearly basis, that being the Uplands Village community book sale.

I've written about this sale in years past, but since I don't think that anyone actually ever goes back and reads old posts from new links, I won't bother adding them. But the skinny, for those that are interested, is that the sale is held by the folks in the Uplands Village retirement community, which is located in the small (less than 600 people) town of Pleasant Hill, about ten miles up the road from me.

Uplands Village is kind of an exclusive little community, not in a gated sort of way, but it's been set up to where they don't have to worry about any undesirables moving in, and by that I mean, troublemakers, or people with troublemaking relatives that might think that they can just show up live out of their RV in someone's driveway. Because of these regulations (as well as some of the other amenities), this is a pretty desirable place to live, attracting residents from all over the world. Speaking from a personal standpoint, I really like the people that live there, most of them are highly educated, and most were successful in whatever line of work they were in, which makes for very interesting people to talk to.

The people in Uplands Village hold a couple of different sales each year, raising funds for the assisted living center that takes care of some of their needier residents, as well as things like their aquatic center. The book sale is the main event for me though. In the four years that I've been here now, I've gone to three of the book sales -- I missed last year's because I forgot about it!!!! Don't ask me how, I had been looking forward to it, and then the day of I just blanked it out, although I did technically remember it later in the morning, about two hours after it had started, but I knew that anything that I would be interested in, would've been gone by then, so I didn't even bother trying to go.

I was not going to forget about it this year though, especially since it was only a couple of days after my trip to McKay's and Red Rhino (already covered on the blog). I was so raring to go that I ended up getting there about forty minutes early, just in case the doors opened early, they didn't, but that's okay, I was there, and that's all that mattered. I was also #2 in line, so that was kind of exciting (it really wasn't, but I figured it was still worth mentioning).

Even though there's literally thousands of books at these sales, my primary interest is in the small amount of non-book items that they usually have (don't worry though, there are books in this post), DVD's, CD's, videos, records, etc. -- so once the doors finally opened, I made a beeline to where all of these things are set-up, which is just inside the entrance and to the right.

I thought initially that guy that was first in line would be heading that way too (he's a flipper), but he didn't, so I got the first crack. I could tell right away that there wasn't as much of the non-book stuff as there has been in previous years, a couple of things however did jump right out at me almost immediately, including the above Columbo movie collection. I never watched this show when I was younger, but with all of the never ending crap that keeps being produced these days, I'm finding myself becoming even more nostalgic than I already have been for shows and movies from the 70's-90's. I've had some pretty good luck with new-to-me shows as of late, Columbo now being one of them, I kind of wish that it hadn't taken me so long to give it a try.

The other two DVD's that stood out were these Carol Burnette Lost Episodes, which I believe came from a box set. It would've been nice to have been able to get the entire set, but these were better than nothing. I paid $6 total for the three DVD's, which isn't too shabby considering that between the three there's something like twenty hours worth of entertainment.

To my immediate left was a table of stuff, now that a few weeks have passed, I've already forgotten most of what was on said table -- save for the box of records (vinyl), that I do remember! In previous years, records were $0.25 each, this year though, they were 5/$0.25, I never finished my degree in mathology, but I believe that that comes out to roughly a nickel apiece :)

The pickings were slim this year, maybe 25-35 records in the box, but I can't not look! I ended up finding two of interest, even though it wasn't five, I still paid a quarter for them -- I'm not about to start nickel and diming these folks, that'd probably be a good a way to incur some bad juju, and I got enough of that already.

It might seem a little odd for someone like myself, who is perpetually single, to buy such an album? But what can I say, deep down, way deep down, I am a hopeless romantic! As for the record, not bad, much better than I thought it would be.

You can go ahead and keep those pithy comments to yourself :)

After the box o' records, it was finally time to hit the books (so to speak):

I have wanted to read this book since it came out, but have never come across a cheap copy, sometimes waiting pays off though, as I will be able to finally read it, and the ability to do so only set me back fifty cents.

This is probably a good time to mention that paperbacks were $0.50, and hardbacks were $1. Plus they always have a wall of specialty books which vary in price.

In years past, both the crafts, and hobbies, sections have yielded some very interesting books at this sale -- this year was no different, well, at least for one book. There wasn't as much stuff in these two sections this year, but this Block Printing with Linoleum sure stood out. I wasn't familiar with the technique (called linocut), but after reading about it, I plan to give it a go at some point in the not too distant future.

Michael Crichton's work has always been hit-or-miss with me, that being said, I am looking forward to reading this one, if only because it had apparently flown under my radar.

He doesn't seem to have a lot, but I really like James Rollins' standalone books (Ice Hunt is one of my favorite post-2000 books), the series' not so much. This is another one that I've been waiting to find a cheap copy of.

I went through a biography phase back in my late teens/early 20's, which saw me reading pretty much any biography that I could get my grubby little hands on, however, I've probably only read less than ten in the fifteen years since that phase passed.

I can't for the life of me remember the title anymore, but there's an out of print biography on Robert Ripley that at one time was my most desired item. I don't know if anything has changed, but it used to be terribly difficult to find, but after many years of searching, I finally found one, paid around $15 for it -- I lost pretty much all interest in biographies before I was even halfway through that book. I had admired his work through most of my childhood, so imagine my dismay when I found out what an a**hole he was, and at times, an absolute terror to everyone around him. After that book I decided that I really didn't want to know too much about those in the limelight anymore.

Despite all of that, there was no way that I could pass up this George Raft biography, I didn't even know such a book existed! There's no synopsis on the back (hence the no picture), but if you know who he was you'll probably think that this looks like it's going to be good -- and if you don't who he was (an actor, among other things), you're not going to care, so I don't know how important the synopsis actually is.

With that big yellow sticker on the front there's no need to guess where this book was originally sold, Dollar General, here they're like Starbucks back home, there's one on practically every corner.

My last book purchase was a big one, literally, it's huge! No synopsis again, but for lovers of history, this looks like a good one. Lots of old photos, posters, and other assorted memorabilia. Plenty of text too, it appears to be a lot wordier than most pictorials.

I am so glad that I didn't forget about the sale again this year, I had a lot of fun looking through everything, got some neat things, and was able to talk to some really interesting people -- and best of all, I only spent $10. Since I'm on a fairly tight budget these days, it's really nice to be able to go somewhere like this, and be able to get a bunch of cool stuff for not a whole lot of money.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.