Library Book Sales

It's that time of year---hasn't anyone had a Eureka! moment? I had what WOULD have been one of those for me had it happened 5 or 6 years ago. My community library had their semi-annual sale yesterday. As I was browsing I noted any number of slim volumes of a certain aspect entirely familiar to me--the book club editions of mystery novels written by Frances and Richard Lockridge. I've been collecting them for years. These were all in very good condition, and conservatively I'd say there were 25 different titles scattered along the tables at this sale. This would have taken my breath away in past years. Now, I've filled in my collection so well that I only grabbed a half dozen of them, mostly to replace my existing copies that aren't in such good shape. (I did capture two I did not yet own.) These were not ex-library copies, but I suspect came from the collection of someone who had been a member of the Mystery Guild bookclub back when these novels were selections (the '60's and '70's mainly.) So they'd been read once and well-preserved, although without dust covers. There were a good many other authors represented in the same way.. J. J. Marric, Ellery Queen & Erle Stanley Gardner to name three that caught my eye.

I found a number of LoA volumes at a recent sale held by my college's library. I didn't collect LoA before this, but seeing the quality of the books, and realizing how many I wanted after scanning the website, I will definitely be collecting at least a sizable chunk of the series, possibly subscribing to it.

I hit my local friends sale today and came away with 30 books for $30. Mostly hardbacks. Looks like someone cleaned out a library devoted to books on WWII, so they had to come home with me.