This past weekend was my annual favourite weekend of the year. It was the big second-hand book sale which runs, nonstop, from noon Saturday to noon Sunday at a local sports stadium.

I've gone to it three years in a row now (I missed out two years ago due to being stuck at work that night, aaarghh). The first time was the best; among other reasons, they had a live Irish band playing all night, and I got an illuminated calligraphic edition of the Q'uran in Arabic for $2. It may have belonged to somebody who served in Egypt in WW2, because I found two wartime photographs folded into the pages and some pencilled notes about Alexandria on the flyleaf. Tracing the original owner or his descendants doesn't seem likely, but I still have the photos.

This year we went along at around midnight and stayed a couple of hours. I ended up getting only ten books this year, which cost a grand total of $7:

Two Agatha Christies and a Mickey Spillane;
The great children's books "The Princess and the Goblins" and "The Princess and Curdie";
"Little House on the Prairie", as a gift. Yes, I give bedraggled 30 cent books to people as gifts. There were reasons, however.
"The Nargun and the Stars" by Patricia Wrightson;
"Two Years Before the Mast", a classic sea story;
The Travels of Marco Polo;
A translation of the classic Chinese novel "Monkey" (yes, the same one they made that atrocity of a TV series about, back in the '70s. I love it.)

There is surely nothing better than getting ten good books for less than half the price of just one new book.

Brunnen-"if you're wondering why I would want an illuminated copy of the Q'uran when I can't read Arabic and I'm not Islamic, I guess you don't know me very well"G