Productive Book Shopping

Ram and I have continued to work on organizing his theology library. Today we took 6 boxes to the used bookstore and they bought 5 boxes worth. The last few times Ram traded books he bought a few books but we still had $140 left in credit. Today we got $75 more credit. We both found a few a lot of good finds to buy today.

Air is all around you: Cheap science book

Cubby in Wonderland and Cubby Returns: When we lived in MN I checked out a Cubby book from the library. When we moved here our library system did not have these books. They are about a bear in the National Parks. I have looked for this series in used bookstores for the last 5+ years. Cubby in Wonderland was in great shape, Cubby Returns had some damage. But I bought both because I have not seen them at used bookstores. I will continue to look for Cubby Returns to replace this damaged copy. Total for both was $24 which I considered worth it.

Child's Geography of the World by Hillyer: I thought a long time before purchasing this one because it was $35. We began reading a Child's History of the World and I thought this book would also be good to read. I think it is out of print. I know some of the information will be out of date. I will probably read it myself instead of reading it to the boys. When I got home I discovered it goes for $50-150 on Amazon. I figured if I didn't like it I could always resell it to the used bookstore.

Star Wars: Right when we walked into the bookstore Lamb 2 saw this book and requested it. It was $10, but we didn't own it yet and we had plenty of credit. I was happy to treat Lamb 2 to a book he wanted.

History of the English Speaking Peoples vol. 3 by Churchill: When we organized our library Ram realized that he had vol. 1 and 2, but not vol. 3 and 4 of this set. We were both happy to get another volume and know there is only one more volume to find at a used bookstore.

The other books in the middle are books that Ram chose. Some have been on his wish list for awhile.

Freddy the Pig Anniversary Collection: One of the Loopers introduced us to Freddy books probably about 8 years ago. We have checked some out of the library, but we only owned one before today. This collection had 3 Freddy books, unfortunately one of those is the one that we already owned. But I thought it was worth $17 to get 2 more Freddy books. I will either pass on the one Freddy book we have to a friend or sell it to the used bookstore.

The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame: I received Dream Days as a Christmas present. Before that the only book I knew by Grahame was Wind and the Willows. When I was reading the introduction I found out Golden Age comes before Dream Days. So I decided to get this book to add to our collection.

Landmark Books: The Loopers recently discussed how great Landmark Books are. There was a great big section of Landmark Books. I chose 4 that I thought would be interesting to the Lambs. I chose-
The Man Who Changed China the Story of Sun Yat-Sen,
Gettysburg,
Louisiana Purchase,
and Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.
It wasn't until I got home that I realized only one was world history, the other 3 were American History.
The Ethan Allen one was interesting to me because there was a typed (copied) letter from the author inside the cover. I wonder if all the Landmark books came with a letter like this?
We did have one other Landmark book, Winston Churchill, but it went in the giveaway pile a few months ago. I didn't see it today at the bookstore. We are unsure if it went to the bookstore or donated. Oh well. So the grand total of Landmark books that we own is 4-all purchased today. We'll see if we like these and perhaps get more next time with our credit.

When it came time to pay use our credit, there was an older man and a younger man working. It confused the older man that we had $140 credit from before plus we got $75 more today. Thankfully the younger man was there to help him figure it out. I was concerned that he was going to get cheated out of some money after he had been so kind to buy so many of our books. But it all got settled and we have about $25 credit left after today. So all these great finds were free to us today and we still have some credit left.

We had debated getting a babysitter to go out to the bookstore together. I knew it would take a long time to look. We ended up all going together. The Lambs were remarkably well behaved the whole time we were there. Lamb 2 was happy to hear at the beginning that he was going to get a book. The other two didn't ask for anything. Afterwards we went to Costco for a few items and the Lambs had a bunch of chocolate samples. We treated them to smoothies at Costco since they were so well behaved at the bookstore. I was glad we saved the money of a babysitter.

I was amazed at how the timing of everything worked today. I did some shopping this morning and Ram did some errands this afternoon. Then we all went to the bookstore. We finished at the bookstore at 5:32 and they closed at 5:30. (We would have been done earlier if it paying hadn't been so confusing.) We still made it in time to Costco to get some samples. We came home and ate supper and the Lambs had a little time to play before bedtime.

We can see the end of our library cataloging project. Ram has two large bookshelves in his office that we still need to do. We are expecting him to want to keep most of what is on those bookshelves that are left. But there may be a few more books from that section to sell to the used bookstore. I love that we got rid of 20 boxes of books (14 before, 6 today) that we didn't want/wouldn't use and replaced it with what you see in this picture-great finds that we will use and appreciate.