A Love for Hard-to-Find Books

On Monday past I was pretty down (February is always a rough month for me; this one more than others). So in an effort to cheer myself up, I bought a lovely little used copy of My Life in France by Julia Child. It was important to me to get a copy with the original cover, so I went to the old standby Abebooks. 

I kind of came across this site in an odd way-through a recommendation by my dentist. We often talk about books since I was an English major and am now in library school, and he was an English minor back in the 70s (card catalog conversations are also the norm). He mentioned to me once that his grandfather was a writer in Russia (I believe he wrote some novels), but all of his books were all out of print or hard to come by. So in his searches, he found this abebooks site and was able to locate all of his grandfather's books-and one was autographed! Some of them are in Russian whilst others have been translated into English, but for someone who never really got to know their grandfather, seeing this side of the man would be invaluable.

Book Recommendation

When I was doing some work-related travel in May, my co-worker Kate and I stumbled upon a lovely little bookstore in Denver, Colorado: The Tattered Cover. The shop was three floors of books connected by a green carpeted, wooden staircase. I loved the carpeting because it reminded me of both the carpet I grew up with and the floors at my Nana's best friend's house (sometimes she would babysit me when my mom and Nana went shopping). At the foot of the staircase and a little to the left was the staff recommendation section; something that always gives me some ideas when I don't know what to read next.

One of the staff members had raved on about a little paperback with an apple green cover called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. The short synopsis of an eleven-year-old detective in 1950's England appealed to my obsession over all things English, and the staff review made the book sound like fun. So I bought it, hoping to get to it during my trip.

Four months later, the book sat on my bedside table unread. It's not like I hadn't tried to read it; things just kept popping up. Books I ordered from the library would come in, and I wanted to give those top priority since I didn't actually own them. The little green book became fairly well-traveled, bumping along in my suitcase during other trips to Las Vegas, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, and Maine. Every time I'd open my bag, it would look patiently up at me and then dart a dirty look at the other book I was holding in my hand.

Finally a few weeks ago, I picked it up during a lull in the constant march of library books and started reading. I loved it immediately! I'm not sure if it was originally meant for children, but it's quite wonderful for adults too. I found myself wishing I had this book when I was 12 or 13; in that awkward period between kid/teen books and adult books. Thankfully, this book is now part of a series entitled Flavia de Luce Mysteries. I am excited to get the second book (grad school schedule permitting) called The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag and put it on the very top of the pile of books at my bedside...or just forgo the pile and read it immediately.