I just finished rereading The Hobbit, and Friday I went to the local used book shop to pick up Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock, on the recommendation of lessismore and Hein (From what I've read so far, I have the feeling that I am going to like it).
I didn't have any cash on me, and as the book was only $3.50, I felt bad about using my credit card. However, the owner cheerfully told me to take the book and to come back and pay when I had the cash. -So nice.
Yesterday I went back to pay for the book, and also decided to pick up The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess, which was a recommendation from kleinbl00. They didn't have The Wanting Seed. But I have been planning on reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, for some time, so I decided to grab that instead. Yet before I could find that, in the WWII section I happened upon The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill, which is the first part of his "The Second War" series, and it earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_World_War_(Churchill)
This reminded me that I had been wanting to read Churchill, and I couldn't pass it up. Churchill was prolific!
and aside from being a wartime Prime Minister, author and historian, he was a painter:
Anyway, I got the book. On my way home, I realized it had a couple of things inserted in it. One was a receipt for Dr. William F. Kreik of Reading Pennsylvania from the BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH-CLUB, INC., in NYC, NY. He paid $4.15 for the book, $0.65 more than I did.:
I did a quick search, and found the book advertised by the club in LIFE in 1949 for $4.00. So that seems to be when Dr. Kreik got it.
http://bit.ly/xA2ECXhttp://bit.ly/xA2ECX
The other was an advertising flier for the book that contained an overview of the contents:
I had to look up Dr. Kreik's address, and he lived here:
http://g.co/maps/kh2gshttp://g.co/maps/kh2gs
I enjoy reading my Kindle. But, it will never offer the used book experience.
id=TGYhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=24cFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4046%2C1627698 It has to be the same guy - the address is the same and all. They held a little wingding in his honor at the "Elks' Home", which is a building run by the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks!
Oh wow. He has deep roots in Berks. http://genforum.genealogy.com/krick/messages/179.html ...In 1873 he was married to Rebecca Fritz, daughter of Henry G. Fritz, and they have one son, William F., who is now a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. His parents are giving him every possible educational advantage and he has the ambition to profit by the same. Mr. Krick and his family belong to the Reformed Church at Sinking Spring. In politics he is a Democrat. How excellent.
I love used books. I love the used book store and Amazon Marketplace. For me, there is no way a Kindle/Nook/iPad could ever replace the experience of book shopping and reading. Although I see the utility of those devices, its not just all about the content. Flipping pages is a experiential thing that scrolling is not.
I got out the scotch tape, and went to work. It has a couple of reads left in it. :)