.......he would pay 1/2 Price Books a small sum every month to bar me from the store. He would come out ahead.
Zteen and I worked at the church this afternoon/evening, finishing up the clean up from the Friday night bash. It's not QUITE done--I have to go sort out all the silverware tomorrow after the McBaby goes home. I was just too tired to dry approximately ONE BILLION (think Carl Sagan's voice there) pieces of silverware. So we left it to drain, and I'll finish it later. The great song of the procrastinator!
Anyway, as a reward, I took Zteen to 1/2 Price Books, but HE didn't buy ANYTHING!!!!! I bought $45 worth of stuff.
Now, to be fair, about $16 of that was made up of kiddo "Bible story books" that we keep in a basket in the narthex of the church so that the little ones can look at Bible stories if they get restless in Mass. We haven't replaced any of our books in a while, and needless to say, they get a little "abused" after awhile.
But the other money was all for me! Yikes!
Let's see. I bought: The four books in The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott (The Jewel in the Crown, et al).
A book of Orson Scott Card short stories called Cruel Miracles. I was taken in by the blurb on the back, where Card says "I believe that speculative fiction--science fiction in particular--is the last American refuge of religious literature....Real religious literature, I think, explores the nature of the universe and discovers the purpose behind it. When we find that purpose, we have found God, because in all religions at all times, regardless of the outward descriptions of God or gods, deity serves the same role: He (or she or they) is the purposer, the planner...." Interesting.
And finally, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Why? Don't know. Just always wanted to read it. But it will land far down on the stack at this point.
I also found a video--The Wonderful Adventure of Pooh, or something like that, that I have been looking for! It has Sebastian Cabot as the narrator, and is very charming. We wore out a set of the videos when Zteen was Zkiddo, and I have wanted a replacement ever since. So now they are found, and with my luck, McBaby won't like them at all. But I so hope she does! I want to sing "I'm Just a Little Black Raincloud" again!
Plus, I saw SpecialK at the store. She was buying gardening books and magazines--proving once again that she is the earth mother organic type......
I'll be interested to hear what the Card book is like. His "Ender" series of novels is extremely highly thought of in SF circles - I haven't read that, but I have read his "Alvin Maker" series, or as much of it as I can get my hands on. That's an amazing fantasy series set in an alternate pioneer-period America - I enjoyed them tremendously.
How I miss Half Price Books! We had them in Seattle and it was always the meeting place for a friend and me to go out to dinner on Saturdays. We occasionally even had transferred Texans working at the store. Now that I live in the D.C. area again, the used/remainder bookstores here are quite poor (there are too many fast-trackers here and not failed intellectuals and bohemians like in Seattle). The Half Price Books even had a very decent religion section, lots of remainders and good used works (thanks to a small cadre of off-beat Catholic big readers).
Card is a devout Mormon, BTW. He is also a good writer. You might also look for his fictional biographies of Sarah and Rebecca (biblical fiction is an interesting genre, but I do NOT recommend "The Red Tent").
I personally loved "The Scarlet Pimpernel". "They seek him here, they seek him there, the Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven, is he in Hell, that demned elusive pimpernel".
insists the movie buff over the english teacher, scarlet pimpernel is a greater view than read-- the version with leslie howard and merle oberon is fan-TAS-tic!