The Waco book sale was today. It will run through the weekend but I knew that if I didn't go the first day everything would be pretty much picked over. As it was, even on the morning of the first day, I really didn't do too well. It's also very difficult to compete with the barcode scanners that every Tom, Dick and Harry insist on using although I can hardly blame them. Eventually I'll get a barcode scanner myself; it certainly takes the guesswork out of buying books that you are unfamiliar with.
My favorite find was The Novels of Muriel Spark, Vol. 1 & 2 published by Houghton Mifflin. It a very handsome set, very clean and tight. The rest was just random, Flying Changes by Sara Gruen (the author of Water For Elephants), a copy of Botany of Desire, some vintage dog breed books but nothing too remarkable. Last year I found a fantastic book on the Basenji. No such luck this year. I got enough to keep me busy through the weekend and into Monday.
I can already anticipate what my distractions will be, two sick dogs and dealing with the ticket that I got on the way up to the sale. I haven't had a ticket in nearly fifteen years. It was a good streak that's come to an end. I'm not going to say I wasn't speeding. The only thing I can say about the matter is that there was a good song on the radio, the traffic was light and I had a wonderful expanse of road in front of me. I was just rolling along, minding my own business. I felt like I was in that luxury lane that Kramer made in that Seinfeld episode. Thinking back on it though, that didn't end very well either.


