Saturday, May 24, 2008

Oh, the treasures I found.


The Dunedin Municipal clock has struck midday, which means the Regent 24 hour book sale is over for another year. I managed two forays, one at 1.00pm yesterday which was insanely busy - an hour after kick-off, and I had to utilise my best shuffling and gentle elbowing skills to get near the books. The other was at a more, ahem, unseemly hour, but I finally found a time where it's reasonably quiet, even if it was 3.30am. Yes, I know, don't ask.
Ah, but it was worth it. Apparently there were 300 000 books this year. I relieved them of thirty.

Most notable treasures:

The Eye of the Lizard by M.H. Holcroft. (Reed 1960) It has the most amazing Tuatara on the cover, by Dennis Beytagh, as featured in Cover Up: The Art of the Book Cover in New Zealand. And yes, I'm the kind of girl who'll buy a book for the cool cover. (And a book on book covers.)

Butterworths Crimes Act 1961 : Thought it could be handy in my line of work.

The pile of books that made the kids very happy.

The Infantry Pioneers Pocket Book. How could I possibly resist a book with the dire warning on the cover "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED. The information given in this document is not to be communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the press or to any person not holding and official position in His Majesty's Service." Oooh. I now have the plans to build blockhouses, gun emplacements, trenches and tank-proof obstacles. All very handy for a girl in the suburbs.

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