book heaven

I was finally able to return to our local bookstore that is closing to retrieve a book I placed back on the shelf. I did, however, replace the book back on the shelf, remembering why I didn't get it in the first place. The book sounds lovely, but reading the beginning chapter didn't have me thrilled to give the book a go. I am so incredibly happy I went though; you will not believe my luck!

I spent most of my time looking at the plays and poetry. I always forget how much I really enjoy reading plays until I pick one up again. Today I decided I would pick up a few more Shakespeare plays, being as I only owned Romeo and Juliet and the three Henry VI plays prior to today. There wasn't a whole lot of selections left of Shakespeare, or I should say a whole lot of selections of Shakespeare books that were actually in decent condition. Most of them had pages ready to fall out of the bindings. I settled on these three: Othello, Macbeth, and As You Like It. You can probably tell by the photo that As You Like It looks pretty old, but the binding is very nice still. The other two look practically new.

Remember way back when I said this was the specific edition I wanted of the Sophocles plays, and that my bookstore only had one copy that was damaged on the pages? Well, I sadly pause by it every time I visit the bookstore, but today I decided to flip through it one last time, longing for it to not be an OCD trigger.

There are weird brown speckles on some of the pages, as if it has been stained. With what? Who knows! Which is why it would be an OCD trigger for me, constantly having my mind wondering what gross thing was spilled upon these pages. However, I was flipping through the pages today and realized that the speckles were in a pattern through the entire book. Two pages fresh and clean, two pages with brown speckles, two pages fresh and clean, two pages with speckles. With that, and the fact that the pages are not crinkled as if they've been wet, I decided it must have been some sort of a mishap when it was printed- and I GOT IT! I am super happy to finally have this book in my hands, weird speckles and all! Considering that every time I ever see this book in any bookstore (even if new), it is always terribly damaged, this is absolutely amazing! I really love this version of the Theban Plays.

Would you believe I found another amazing find? They must still be pulling books out from the back of their store, as I have been looking for a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poems since I discovered his poetry online. Apparently, his books are hard to come by! They actually had three different ones on the shelf today. I chose the thickest one that appears as though it might contain all of his works. I really love his poetry; probably one of the only poets that I feel I could own an entire book of their poems and devour it all.

 

I got these 5 books and let my daughters each pick out another book, so seven books total at 50%. I only paid $11 for all those books today!. You cannot beat that! It is a bittersweet though. I've gotten a lot of wonderful books lately that I can't wait to read, for so cheap! But, in about a week we wont have a bookstore...