The Wrong People Died

I went to the book sale today, and for the first time was able to peruse at will without having to worry about where the kids were, or cutting my looking short to go pick anyone up. Unfortunately, the wrong people died during the year, and so the books I would have wanted are still with the living owners.

Last year I hit a treasure trove--my guess is some old SF fan died, and his family just donated his old paperbacks to the book sale, and boy, did I hit the jackpot! I still have dozens of those old books I haven't read yet from that sale. But this year I only found a few books I wanted, even though I looked very thoroughly. Still, I'm not unhappy with what I found.

I picked up a collection of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories. I love Chesterton's nonfiction, and I've heard a great deal about Father Brown, but I don't think I've ever read one. I also picked up a copy of W. Somerset Maugham's The Hour Before the Dawn. This one is my wild card book--just picked it up on a whim to see what's in it. The final paperback is a book called The Philosophy of Time, edited by Richard M. Gale. I have no idea if I'll like it or not. I got it because the essays are from diverse sources, among them St. Augustine and Aristotle.

The two hardcovers I got are quite different. One is The Secret Lives of Girls, a psychology/sociology book I got it because I hope it will both help in my writing and help in outfoxing my two teenage girls. The other is the prize, autobiographical tales from the life of one of my favorite authors, M. M. Kaye. She wrote The Far Pavilions, and this book is called The Sun in the Morning: My Early Years in India and England. I didn't even know it existed! I would have so fallen in love with this woman if we'd ever met--in my own personal "Somewhere in Time," she would have been my Jane Seymour.