Picked these up today, a dollar apiece. What a deal! I actually picked them out on Tuesday, but they weren’t half-off, but they were exactly where I left them, and today were now half-off. The two Mozart CDs by BIZ sound great. It is difficult for me to find classical I don’t have already at a thrift store, but it can still happen.
The Dr. Seuss book is substantial and is very detailed into his life and work. The World War II book appeared pretty standard, but the illustrations are terrific. Vikings and the Patton book are great additions to the library as well.
I happened across these paperbacks today at half-off. They range from the years 1942 through the 1970s. It is nice to come across a batch of books like this.
A History of Warfare • John Keegan, renowned historian. I have a lot of his books.
History Channel: The Civil War • This was only seventy-five cents, and I learned two things just from the introduction.
Two Centuries of Warfare • This is a huge book, full of pictures and illustrations in addition to text.
Aircraft of World War II • A reprint of an older book with many diagrams of warplanes.
Vietnam: The Helicopter War • Nice to have a book focused on the choppers.
World at War: 1945 to the Present Day • One of three books, now I have to find the other two.
A Year in the Live of Downton Abbey • The fourth book I have about the show (that I have all of the Blu-rays of!)
The Great Book of King Arthur & His Knights of the Round Table • My dad picked this up for free from somewhere. It’s only a few years old and is on quality paper.
The Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant • This replaces my older, non-annotated version. Better size, paper, and content.
Death or Glory • My only book on the Crimean War (to my knowledge), which is the first war journaled in any real number of photographs, and a precursor to how the Civil War would be fought.
Nothing but Victory • I took a chance that this wasn’t in my dad’s library already, and it wasn’t. For a buck-fifty, it is fairly new, in perfect shape, and has a good number of pages. I can’t pick up every Civil War book I want because of space, but this one was worth it.
Hindenburg • I paid full price for this one, because lately I have gone from being totally uninterested in airships, to very interested. Airplanes always appeared to be far more exciting than a big, fat, slow airship, but upon further inspection, they are really interesting. They were for a time, airliners in the sky, and some even had a lounge with a piano for guests!
Time/Life The Epic of Flight: The Giant Airships – The First Aviators • On the same topic, I passed on these books a long time ago, in an effort to save space as there were some books in this set I wasn’t interested in, so I decided to keep an incomplete set. However, I’m now interest in Airships, and those who took real risks in creating and testing the first airplanes. Now, as I look at this set, there are only two or three that I am uninterested in acquiring.
Scharnhorst • I’ve read about this ship in other books, but this is the first book focused on just the Scharnhorst. It was fairly new, and half-off, so, a great deal.
Shoot for the Moon • I’m more interested in the moon landing, wheres previously, I wasn’t. It is actually fascinating and it’s a shame people aren’t into this topic more.
The Mighty Eighth • I have another book by this title, but it is a less graphical one by a different author. The bomber missions are incredibly interesting when the reader tries to imagine himself in the same situation as the men who were there.
The Great Pyramid Decoded • Detailed but readable information and thoughts on the mysteries and facts about the Pyramids.
The Russian Empire 1801-1917 • I left this one last week, as it was beat-up and full-price, and gambled it would still be around this week at half… and it was! I did a lot of Photoshop on the very much beat-up and ripped cover (it’s not perfect, but a lot better! It’s good to know how much time to, and not to spend on some of these things!)
The Red Baron • I knew of this books’ existence, being the one with this title that was written by the Red Baron himself! Glad to have found it.
Other Clay / Beyond the Beachhead • First-hand accounts, my favorite kind of history book.
Blood and Treasure • I’m a Daniel Boone / Davey Crockett guy, but I don’t actually know a lot about them.
Supremacy at Sea • This one was only published last year, and I got it at 1/5th the originally discounted new price!
This World War I book, I actually didn’t have, and it has an introduction by John Keegan. Published in 1980, I find it hard to believe I haven’t seen this book before at all of the book sales and thrift/book stores I’ve frequented over the years!
The Demon of Unrest was published within the year, a 2024 book and still has the original $18.99 price tag on it. I got it for nowhere near that much!
Scholar of Mahem is one of those first-person accounts that I like so much, so that was a no-brainer to pick up.
Bloodlands is a book I already had, and accidentally bought again. Turns out I had a beat-up paperback, and this one is hardback. So, everything worked out. And it looks to be a great book on a topic that is extremely interesting.
Another week of great finds! I had to leave some behind for various reasons, mostly price and lack of room for new books. But all of these are just great! Behind the Curtain is similar to another book I’ve read that was published around the same time, by another journalist except this one was trying to stay ahead of the Nazi advance, and the one in this book is describing how the Iron Curtain is from behind it. I could go on about each book here, but suffice to say, they all look to be great reading and good additions to my library. The most expensive books were only three dollars, at the ARC where for a while the standard for hardbacks had changed to nine, before the half-off Saturday discount. Most of these here were $1.50-$2.00. One or two of these are only a few years old, and we all know how expensive brand-new hardbacks are!
Report From Ground Zero • I sampled a few paragraphs from this before I bought it, and he was describing what it was like to find someone’s foot and leg bone, and what they did with it. We shouldn’t forget these things, all most people remember or know is the sight of the buildings burning, but there is so much more that happened.
Went to four ARC thrifts this weekend for their half-off Saturday sale, and also hit an estate sale where I picked up four really old yearbooks for next to nothing. One of them was from 1902, and the other three were before World War II! I haven’t purchased this many books in a really long time! I’m finding that estate sales can have a kind of depressing air about them, as usually someone has passed away and all of their things are for sale… right where that person lived, and maybe died. In this case, it was a dirty, dusty house full of stuff that had to have been a rough job for the people running the sale. The book selection was one of those odd situations where all of the books didn’t interest me at all, save for the yearbooks. But at least at sales like this, things can be both cheap, and still flexible in price. Also, many of the books I saw at one of the ARC stores gave off the possibility that some World War II vet had just passed away, or someone older with that kind of interest based on the volume of books and the date they were published. Another one of those sad realities.
Thirteen books added to my library this week! That is the neat thing about having your own library, it is tailored to my interests, and every book I have is one that I could just pick up and read without having to wonder if it is remotely interesting. That has already been determined. Every book I buy is reviewed on the spot as to whether would be worth my time to read, so the library is 100% up my alley, so to speak. Not so much at the public libraries, that is another conversation/lecture! I’m not going to comment on each book here, most of them are self-explanatory.
Hillbilly Elegy • I’ve heard a lot about this book, it was written maybe ten years ago, obviously before becoming Vice President.
Makin’ Tracks • I watched the series Hell On Wheels, which was not a consistently good series, but the aspect of the story about building the railroad was always the interesting part of it, as well as the productions values in respect to recreating pieces of history.
The Survivor of the Holocaust • First-hand accounts are one of my favorite kind of book.
Klondike Fever • I read a book about the history of Alaska, so this is an continuation of that.
Men at Sea • Many good perspectives on something I am glad I’ve never had to do.
Total Recall • I do have issues with Arnold on politics, and like anybody, he’s made some big mistakes in life, but at the same time, there is a lot to admire about the guy, and his story has to be very interesting. Plus, Terminator and Predator are two of the best movies ever made.
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