Mini summer book haul


Yesterday my family and I had another chance to visit Powell's City of Books, which, as I raved last year, is the coolest bookstore you'll ever get lost in.  I naively assumed it would be fairly quiet in the middle of a Monday...that was a very, very wrong assumption.  The place was absurdly busy - summer has not ended at Powell's!

I felt kind of overwhelmed and exhausted after twenty minutes, so I didn't really spend as much time as could have been spent, easily, looking at all the classics and polar exploration books (sigh).  This was my list:


In the end, my timid heart decided not to spend a lot of money, so I got two Conrads and The Scarlet Letter, all three for under $10:


I don't know how I possibly could have missed it, but The Scarlet Letter has some bad pen marks in the middle of the book.  It was only $3.50, and though I love Hawthorne, there is a chance I'll be underwhelmed.  If I love it, I'll get a clean copy; if not, I don't have to keep it.

Under Western Eyes is one of my favorites, so I couldn't resist it.  And I've been meaning for the longest time to get Nostromo, because I find Conrad is best read in hard copy (I get kind of lost reading him in e-book form).  They also had The Shadow-Line, which, if I had been feeling more energetic and spendy, I'm sure I would have bought as well...

And I almost bought Kierkegaard's Works of Love, which I'd just got from the library and can hardly put down.  It was a brand-new copy but had a tear in the cover, so happily(?) that decided it for me.  ;)

So...I managed to make it in and out of Oregon with just three books and a Peach Green Tea Lemonade (with plenty of peach!).  If I could get down to Powell's more often, it's be a different story, I'm sure. 

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