Friday, July 28, 2006

At the Book Fair

The local Lion's Club is having a Book Fair this weekend, stocked with donations, so naturally I had to check it out. You never know what you'll come across in a sale like that where people have cleaned off their bookshelves (other than thousands of Harlequin romances and book club editions of Frank G. Slaughter novels). I came home with five books:

A Detective Book Club triple volume (one of the old brown ones) including ALIAS BASIL WILLING by Helen McCloy, ACCIDENT BY DESIGN by E.C.R. Lorac, and THE WATCH SINISTER by Maria Blizard. I picked up this one for the McCloy novel. I read one of her Basil Willing books years ago and remember enjoying it. I'm not familiar with the other authors.

SEE YOU AT THE MORGUE by Lawrence G. Blochman, a 1941 hardback.

DEATH TAKES A BOW by Frances and Richard Lockridge, a large print edition of a 1943 Mr. and Mrs. North novel. I was a big fan of the Lockridges at one time, especially their books about Pam and Jerry North. I haven't read one in years, though.

SLEEP NO MORE by Sam S. Taylor, a 1949 hardback from Dutton featuring private eye Neal Cotten. I read a few books in this series a long time ago and remember liking them quite a bit.

RIP FOSTER RIDES THE GRAY PLANET by Blake Savage, a 1952 Whitman juvenile SF novel. I'd be willing to bet that Blake Savage is a pseudonym, but I have no idea who really wrote this one. I also don't know who Rip Foster was. A comic strip character, maybe? I'll have to investigate this one. Most of the books published by Whitman were media tie-in novels, but not all of them.

So, not a great haul, but I'm glad I checked out the sale anyway.

2 comments:

Chocolate Cobwebs said...

Hi there. I realise it was months ago now, but what did you think of 'Alias Basil Willing' by Helen McCloy? I just finished it today and reviewed it on my blog before doing a search to see if anyone else had read/reviewed it.

James Reasoner said...

Unfortunately, it's still sitting unread in the bag with the other books I bought that day. I'm terrible at getting around to reading the books I buy.