I'll try again

I'd written out a full post a little earlier, but blogger made it all disappear. Alas ... I'll try again.

I started by pointing out that today has been busy, but that's mostly been my fault as I've been wasting a lot of time. How I don't know, but the day has gotten away. I did, though, want to mention the outcome of my trip to the Decatur Library book sale on Friday:

• The find I was most proud of was a hardcover first edition of one of my all-time favorites: Sex & Sunsets. While this book illicits strong negative opinions from some, I absolutely love it. C'mon guys, it's NOT glorifying stalkering [er, I guess that should be "stalking" or "stalkers" -- oh well, I did once "win" a $1.50 prize from a magazine for inventing a new word]! I already own an identical copy of this, but I'm trying to forget that I paid MORE than cover for it at some shop in Nashville. Grr.

• Someone must have been dumping Tim Sandlin because I also found a hardcover copy of Sorrow Floats -- the second volume in his GroVont Trilogy. Yet again, I already had a copy of this, but it's an oversized paperback. I'm perfectly happy with the oversize paperback, but this one was 50 cents and I just couldn't pass it up.

• Finally, a book I did NOT already own: The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version. I tried to read this book once before, but that was years ago. Maybe I'll have better luck this time. Small thing, I'm not sure what makes this version "finished". The Amazon reviews, though, make it sound as if the author tacks on a postscript to help "explain" the book -- never a good sign.

• A shiny quarter got me a nice oversized paperback copy of Pete Dexter's The Paperboy. I wrote a paper on Paris Trout for freshman comp and I've always wanted to read some more of his stuff, I just never got around to it. Now I guess I have no excuse.

• I already know I wasted 12.5 cents (it was listed as a quarter, but the sale was "half off") on this one: Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. I really enjoyed Bastard Out of Carolina, so I figured I'd try Dorothy Allison's slim (96 pages) memoir. It was oddly written, but that wasn't what bothered me. Nor do I think I was discomfited by the discussions of lesbianism. No, I think what put me off was that after the first few pages, there seemed to be nothing but discussions of lesbianism. I realize Ms. Allison had a traumatic upbringing and I know I'm not an unbiased reviewer, but after a while I got tired of the "yeh lesbians, boo men" routine. Sorry, but that was my take.

• Finally, there's at least one (I think two) books that I'm forgetting. I've been mentally reviewing my "shopping cart" from Friday, but I just can't come up with them. See, the problem is that I'll buy almost anything that sounds remotely interesting at the book sale and I tend to do just that. As a result, I sometimes have trouble remembering just what I bought. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I got my approximately $3 worth from them. Now I just have to get around to donating some of my books to them. That would free up some shelf space for me and lead to even more book buying. Yippee!