Sunday, September 27, 2009

An embarrassment of riches

Last week I was very, very good and finished all my writing goals for the week! I even cleaned my bathroom (and boy, did it need it). So I promised myself I could buy as much as I wanted at the Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale this weekend. Here's what I ended up with:

Research:

1. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain 1789-1837, by Ben Wilson.
2. Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650-1838, by Barbara Bush. (A different Barbara Bush.)
3. Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, by Juan Cole.
4. Holy Madness: Romantics, Patriots, and Revolutionaries, 1776-1871 by Adam Zamoyski. I'm not sure how much of this will be Regency, nor does he appear to talk much about women. However, I've been wanting to read more about the Romantic movement for a long time and the book looks interesting, so we'll see.
5. London Life in the Eighteenth Century by M. Dorothy George. She seems to mean the long eighteenth century (which can start as early as the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and end as late as the Great Reform Bill of 1832, although in this case it means 1700-1815), which is nice for me. It mostly focuses on the details of working class life, with a whole section on "London Immigrants and Emigrants," one of my current research topics!
6. The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy, by Nicholas Blake and Richard Lawrence.

Romance:

1. Flat-Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy. I remember this got a great review on Smart Bitches when it first came out.
2. Seduction of a Proper Gentleman, by Victoria Alexander.
3. The Boys Next Door, by Jennifer Echols. (YA. I loved her debut about the marching band, Major Crush.)
4. All-American Girl by Meg Cabot. Possibly her last YA series I haven't read any of.
5. Love Letters from a Duke by Elizabeth Boyle.
6. The Admiral's Bride by Suzanne Brockmann. Someone recced this to me YEARS ago.
7. Aaaaand, an extra copy of Lord of Scoundrels. Because you never know.

Cookbooks:

I don't cook at home as much as I used to now that I cook for a living, but I still love it and I always look in the cookbooks section. In past years I've found such gems as Barbara Cartland's The Romance of Food, The First Ladies Cook Book (featuring the favorite recipe of each First Lady of the US), and last year a book of excitingly-shaped cakes (dinosaurs, volcanos, &c.). This year I ended up with:

1. Romantic Italian Cookery by Mary Cadogan.
2. The Joy of Liberace: Retro Recipes from America's Kitschiest Kitchen. I never even knew Liberace was a cook! The book is full of amazing photos of him cooking, and also food with rhinestones on it.

Not a bad haul! If you're looking for me in the next month or so, I'll probably be diving into my books like Scrooge McDuck into his Money Bin.

Does your town have a library book sale? What's the best find you ever bought there?