The UC Book Sale is over - not quite the frenzy as it rained all yesterday, so only the diehards came out for the $10 box sale, and since the words 'book rate' are perpetually in my mind, I didn't get nearly so many books there as I did last year. Some of these I got at UC, some Andrei got for me at the New College Sale (the hidden in a basement of a scary building sale), some I got today at the charity sale in the atrium at the CBC and Gemma gave me one special one (Hildegard of Bingen) that I didn't even know existed.

The sale did well, I think; almost all the books I put on the table to lure shoppers went one way or another - I took a few home (guess which ones, faithful readers!) but otherwise was pleased to bring them out and see who bought them.

Moments from the sale - Elizabeth Baird priced our cookbooks and arranged them too, plus she made us triangular poppy seed-filled cookies...Nancy Zhao jumping up and down when I told her I was engaged and was going to be married & then live in London...looking at a mini A-Z and realizing where I was going to live and feeling stunned and amazed all over again...people walking by my table in its most messy state and wondering how I would ever finish in time...helping three students get good books from my table minutes before the last frenzy of box buyers...cracking wise at the science table about physics ('You don't have to dissect anything and nothing smells")...helping a woman get a good dictionary and encyclopedia...realizing that sometimes you *can* judge a book by its cover...deciding not to take certain books as they were ones of my old self...

...so here they are, with notes when I feel like making them...

100 Recettes Familiales d'Automne

I read cookbook French the best.

A. St. John Adcock - Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London

Great illustrations and stories of Johnson, Keats, Lamb, all those guys.

Jane Austen - Emma, Love & Freindship and other writings, Northanger Abbey

I am keeping up with Austen and replacing all my books as they are old & yellowing.

Julian Barnes - Letters From London

Kind of dated, but I will read anything worth reading about my new home city...

John Betjeman - An Oxford University Chest

I like Oxford and this is a fine book about the place.

Hildegard of Bingen - Selected Writings

Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy

It's been on my wishlist for some time and looks very good.

Sir Thomas Browne - The Major Works

Sarah said that if I liked Charles Lamb, I'd like him, so...

Roberto Calasso - The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Lots of Greek mythology here, with some good insights as well.

Bruce Campbell & Donald Watson - The Oxford Book of Birds

When I was in London I saw birds and didn't know what the hell they were. This is fun, but only for a while.

Albert Camus - Lyrical and Critical Essays

He is the man, after all.

Hugh Casson - Hugh Casson's London

Notice a theme here yet? I looked at this and started whimpering.

Julia Child - Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. I & II

One day I'm going to make a clafouti and no one will stop me!

Ernst Robert Curtius - European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages

Andrei said I had to read this and Mimesis by Erich Auerbach. So I will!

Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Diary

Replacement copy from when my bathroom sink overflowed with yucky water and ruined my last one.

Mrs. Gaskell - North and South, Wives and Daughters

I've never read her, I think I should start.

George & Weedon Grossmith - Diary of a Nobody

There were several 'Ladlit' books on my table (no names mentioned) but I somehow think this will outlast them all.

Thomas Hardy - Far From the Madding Crowd

I read this in high school and thought I should read it again.

Christopher Hibbert - London: The Biography of a City

The theme continues...

Aldous Huxley- The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell

Did you know that people thought LSD would improve people's brains and help them evolve faster?

La Rochefoucauld - Maxims

I've been looking for this at all the sales for some time, and there it was...

Philip Larkin - A Girl in Winter

Matthew Lewis - The Monk

And there you were thinking I wasn't interested in Gothic anything.

E. V. Lucas - A Wanderer in London

Old school Edwardian London, that is.

H. V. Morton - In Search of England

What immediately comes to mind: "The Lost Country" Vanishing Harold sketch. (Next line: a completely puzzled cry of "Where is it?")

Michael Ondaatje - In The Skin of a Lion

Another replacement copy, the ultimate Toronto novel.

Pauline Reage - The Story of O

Not sure if I'm going to keep this, Sontag big-upped it (as I am sure she never said) so I will try one more time...

P. H. Reaney - The Origin of English Place Names

I hope it helps me to pronounce some of them!

Paul Routledge - Gordon Brown The Biography

Rapidly written to capitalize on the massive Labour win in '97, if he get to be the next British PM then I expect it will be rewritten extensively. For all I know, it's already happened.

Ferdinand de Sassure - General Course in Linguistics

Andrei insisted and I couldn't pass it up - the granddaddy of all the French Guys.

Stevie Smith - Me Again, Work It Out For Yourself (aka Novel on Yellow Paper)

Plath wanted to read this novel but never got around to it, though she did write a very warm letter of admiration to Smith in 1962.

Jeff Stone and Kim Johnson Gross - Storage, Cooking Tools (Chic Simple Series)

Cute little books that are full of great & useful ideas.

Marina Warner - From the Beast to the Blonde

History of fairy tales and the big themes in them.

Fay Weldon - Letters to Alice

Fictional letters telling a rebellious teenager why she should care about & read Austen. I don't need to be convinced, but thought I should read it anyway.

William Wordsworth - Selected Poems

An interesting thing - I can stand and focus and pretend so easily that I am in England, and what would I read if I was...and I got this.

and a neat historical map of London complete with lots of coats of arms for guilds and boroughs...

...I may go to the Trinity sale this Sunday if the weather is good, or even if it isn't, just to see Seeley Hall one more time...