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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Hitting the Book Jackpot

I forgot to let everyone know about the treasure I found this past weekend. I went to the Bellville (TX) Historical Society’s antique and book fair. It's a nice little town 45 minutes northwest from Houston. The main draw? $0.25 paperbacks, 5 for $1. At those prices, there’s no reason to cull the inevitable stack any of us would generate. And I didn’t. I spent $3. All books but one were mass market paperbacks.

The prize, for me, was another Cool and Lam novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, Traps Need Fresh Bait.
The Black Curtain – Cornell Woolrich
The Hand in the Glove – Rex Stout (featuring Dol Bonner, not Nero Wolfe)
The Corpse That Never Was – Brett Halliday
A Morbid Taste for Bones – Ellis Peters (Brother Cadfael #1)
The Emperor’s Snuff Box – John Dickson Carr
Castle Skull – John Dickson Carr
Till Death Do Us Part – John Dickson Carr
City of Bones – Michael Connelly
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling – Lawrence Block
Poison – Ed McBain
The Long Chase – Max Brand (thanks to David Cranmer for having Brand on the brain)
Stories of O. Henry
A Hell of a Woman – Jim Thompson (trade paperback)
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – John Le Carre (classic I've never read but wanted to)

That’s the list. Look for most of them on a future Forgotten Book Friday. Anyone have any comments on any of these?

5 comments:

  1. Recently I've become a fan of John Dickson Carr. I'll be interested to hear how those two novels are. The Emperor’s Snuff Box?! That's an interesting title. The Cornell Woolrich and Le Carre are both great. Enjoy!

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  2. And I'll be looking forward to your take on John Dickson Carr. Sounds like you got a good deal for the money.

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  3. Much like you, I've recently begun an "education" in crime/noir/hardboiled fiction. Eb Brubaker recommended Le Carre's classic in this interview with Swierczynski so I picked it up immediately. I absolutely loved it, so I'm eager to see what you think.

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  4. @David and Ray,
    I looked up JDC on Wikipedia last night. It looks like the three books I found all have different protagonists: one with Fell (his #1 detective; this story a locked room), one with Bencolin (a whodunit), and Kinross solves the snuff box story (supposed one of the best books of his not to feature his main detectives). Looking forward to them.

    @ Jacob
    Man, I've been wanting to read TSWCIFTC for a long time. Never have seen the film, either. Speaking of Brubaker, I've just started reading his non-Batman crime stories. This guy is fantastic. I expect to pick up a few more this Friday at my local comics shop (Halloween sale!). Thanks for the link.

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  5. I read all the Carr books thirty years ago. Be interested to hear how they hold up.
    Read all the LeCarre books as they came out for a long time. Reading them was a given.

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