Well, it’s my favourite winter event again - the Lifeline Bookfest is on this long weekend. I’m off to see what $2 bargains exist in the history, politics and science fiction sections, and will update this post with my finds. As always, fellow Brisvegans should feel free to share the rare gems (and just bloody cheap not so rare books) they pick up. I’m still enjoying George Saintsbury’s Notes on a Cellar-Book from last time, though we haven’t yet got around to holding our authentic Edwardian dinner party. Perhaps that’s because Chateau Lafitte 1878 is in short supply.
Updates might be a bit delayed though, because I’m taking my mum out to dinner tonight at The Continental Cafe on Barker St. Perhaps not quite an Edwardian gentleman’s cellar, but the next best thing…
I got nerd lucky and picked up Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the legendary source book/hobby guide that Games Workshop has regularly forgotten about/re-embraced several times over the last 15 or so years. Not that I really play the game any more.
And, and and! A copy of the same edition of The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer that I loaned out to someone and never recovered about 7 years ago. Swoon. Best. Bookfest. Ever.
SF section was rubbish though. I can’t stand wading through table after table of extruded fantasy product and LRon books to find the occasional gem any more.
Mark, how I wish I was there, need to complete my Jim Thompson collection, but it’s a trial, damn people are getting on to ’60s crime pulp and making dough out of us /well me.
Thompson, A Hell of a Woman. “I lighted two cigarettes, and gave her one”
’she started laughing. Screamed at me. I threw myself out of the window’
Don’t come much better that that……..
than
I saw a book in the collectables section called The Currency Lass but I thought it only fair to give C.L. dibs if he’s going along:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=2901#comment-37287
Its really good to read the thoughts of others in books, and when their words come at bargain price thats cool. The simple human foder so many leaders feed from just maybe get a glimse into there masters tools and methods and step up, if not its mixing cement for life I guess.
My exciting find!
A Survey of Cornwall from 1520 telling all about the landscape and the weird Celtic ways of the Cornish.
And a life of Lord Birkenhead! F E Smith as was….
He shitted all over Winston Churchill when it came to pointless scion of the aristocracy posturing in the 1906 Parliament.
And he looks like a thoroughly disreputable fop according to the daguerrotypes reproduced in his campaign manifesto.
Vote for Disraeli!
You know you want to.
I’m a Gladstone man, personally.
My three bookcases are already overflowing. Unless there is something very enticing on offer there, I don’t think I’ll be going.
I hit up the high quality section for some fiction but the best fun to be had was on the cassette tables. Among the highlights: Interstate Truckin’ Queensland, featuring ‘Drivin’ My Life Away’, ‘Truck Drivin’ Man’ and ‘Take This Job & Shove It’. Perfect for that next road trip.
Oh, and my 50c book bargain was Kerouac’s Desolation Angels. As if I really needed to revisit the Beats…
Cliff, Cliff, Cliff, the obvious thing to do is to get more bookshelves!
I’ll post some photos of my purchases tomorrow.