The Ernie Pyle book below was made in 1944… and it is like brand new. White pages, no issues whatsoever! Almost as unbelievable is that I don’t have it already!
America 1908 is interesting as it shows what the USA was like right before the war, which is important to know.
Images Of War • Artwork from the war. There is a lot of this in books, but I have few books about it.
Warrior is one of those books I see every once in a while, and wanted when it was new. Finally found one at a cheap price! A nice romp of photos and text, not heavy reading but very interesting, visually.
300 • Finally, I get to experience the book that one of my favorite movies was based on. I read Frank Miller’s take on Batman back in high school, so I’m familiar with the visual style. What I didn’t understand about the movie for years, is that it is from the point of view of the narrator, telling the story. It isn’t actually supposed to be historically accurate.
Not much to say here, although the Songs Of WWI is a nice two-disc volume that has the original recordings… I read about these songs all the time so it will be a nice reference.
Voices of Time is a nice disc, and the Living Stereo of Van Cliburn is of course something I won’t turn down, especially with the Prokofiev 3.
History of Western Europe • This is a great find, being in good shape and printed in 1903. Always interesting to read out-of-date history!
Thunderbolt • Memoirs are never a bad buy (unless it is someone who is unscrupulous, such as this book by a mobster I read a long time ago… by the second chapter it was obvious he was just making everything up. It was crazy.)
Why The Germans Lose At War • Interesting analysis of the skilled people in the German military/political scene, and the wildly unskilled people in the German military/political scene.
Mathew B. Brady’s Civil War • Amazing how old these photographs are, and we are very lucky to have them. Sure would be interesting if photography had developed earlier and we could have seen the War of 1812 or Revolutionary War. This is a great book though.
Rome • Season 1 & 2 • I haven’t watched this since it came out fifteen years ago… and I picked this up, which is both seasons… for $1.50! The discs are in perfect shape and so far I’m several discs in. What a deal! Also, it’s in a sort of book form, with the discs easy to access, without even really opening the ‘book’ up. Great packaging.
Eyewitness Auschwitz: A very raw, first-hand account of being in Auschwitz.
Fulcrum: Escaping the Soviet Empire. That’s what people don’t understand about Communism/Socialism: They wall you in, you have to escape it.
Fatal Voyage: I have several books on the USS Indianapolis now. Sounds like such a sad story.
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II: I have other books by this editor, and of the same kind… they are big books! Interesting to just look through, and a handy reference when reading my other books. Amazing that a book this big can be had for next to nothing. This was one of those really neat bargain priced books that would be sold at Waldenbooks or Barnes & Noble. They used to have a really nice amount of great books at decent prices, for new books that is. Now, there is no Waldenbooks and Barnes & Noble only has a fraction of the Bargain Book section that they used to have. So sad. Every time I see one of the bargain price stickers on a book, it makes me think of the time I spent agonizing of which books to buy because they were all so good and all so cheap (not compared to thrift prices, but I didn’t hit the thrifts back then).
Nothing too shocking here: The Zemlinsky Symphonies is totally new to me. The Beethoven Overtures is a nice collection but not totally new to me. The Britten: Spring Symphony is new to me, and the disc and case are like new even though it is a 1997 release!
I have listened to almost all of these already, the Debussy / Ravel album has been the best so far, along with the Faure: Requiem.
Iwo Jima: Twenty-two first-hand accounts. Very interesting read.
Franco and Hitler: How the war would have been different if Franco had joined the Axis, this is very interesting stuff.
The Last of the Doughboys: More first-hand accounts, but this is from the Great War.
Now, this The World War II Album was a risk, as it looked so familiar, and my list had The World War I Album in my library and was very familiar, but all it would take would be one little typo, a “I” instead of “II” and I’d have a double on my hands. This is why it’s good to sample books from one’s library, as to know the library better. There shouldn’t be books in my library that I am unfamiliar with. But as it turns out, I won this gamble and now I have the two-book set! I have never seen this book before or I would have it already. I actually read the first volume five or ten years ago in its entirety. I don’t pay attention much to authors and book titles, which is not a great habit, but there it is. In any case, I’m really happy with all of these buys.
This soundtrack was a gamble as it was scratched up more than I usually accept… and it ripped to my computer perfectly. No issues, I listened to the entire thing, expecting some sort of audible errors… nothing! This is great as I really like the soundtrack to these movies and only have one of the five so far (now, two of the five). This is one of those soundtracks that never hits the thrifts, and was only there because it was so scratched that nobody wanted it. I really like Hans Zimmer soundtracks.
This is one of my favorite symphonies, so another rendition of it is a good find.
This Decca / Haitink series of Shostakovich is almost complete. I’m trying to get the releases with this format of cover, and this Decca / Haitink series contains the first copy of Symphony 11 that I bought right after hearing it live, which hooked me.
This is actually two seperate physical releases that I combined into one cover since it’s a complete collection of Dvorak’s symphonies. It’s nice when the entire set is available at the same time as to avoid having to put up with an incomplete set, waiting for that opportunity to come across the missing discs.
This was still in the shrink-wrap! Thibaudet is one of those pianists I am specifically collecting.
Finding all of these completes my Deutsche Grammophon / Abbado set of Symphonies. I do have to wonder where the missing 3 & 4 and 7 were as I didn’t see it at the thrift I found these at.
I have been listening to more organ music lately thanks to some orchestral transcriptions, so it was nice to find these. One of them was still in the shrink-wrap, too!
Below is the rest of my finds, all good! It took some time to sort through them all, check them against my list, check the condition… I’d thought they were all full price ($3.00) since they were all together in a plastic tray, but it turns out they were all half-off! The Rachmaninov Symphonies and Schubert Lieder were both three-disk sets that come in custom boxes, and looked to be completely unused!
After not hitting the thrifts since May, we’ve been at at least two per week as Dad was looking for something in particular. So I can’t not look, and not pick up good finds while I’m there.
Above is a slideshow of all the discs; below are selected discs that are in that slideshow.
I listed to Li quite a bit back in 2009, but he’s been lost with all of the other pianists I’ve been listening to… there are so many! But I haven’t seen these three albums in a thrift since then. It’s unfortunate because he’s really good. Odd thing is that I can’t locate the other albums by him that I have, which is strange since my library is fairly well organized.
This was in one of those rare, ideal, quality jewel cases, unlike the normal, cheap, easy-to-break cases that 99.9% of CDs come in. It’s sad that these cases weren’t the standard.
This guy is quite prolific with his recordings… I’ve never seen these two in a thrift before.
Shostakovichs’ Eleventh Symphony is my favorite, and adding these two discs to the set makes for a good day. I need to look and see how many of these I have by Haitink. It would be nice to have the entire set.
Looking forward to listening to this one, apparently it came straight from Japan (Or Korea?)
I thought I had all of these VoxBox discs, and I have yet to make sure that I don’t have this one. If I lose in picking this up, I’m out a buck-fifty. This is one I’d likely have by now. I do know that I have the re-release, but this one matches the others in the original set.
How did I not have this one? I thought I had all of Sarah Chang’s releases! Amazing. I probably was waiting for the price to come down back when I originally collected her discs, and this one was too expensive at the time, and got lost in all of the collecting I’ve done since then. That’s all I can think of for as to why I didn’t have it already.
These guys have so many discs… Happy to find this one, I think it’s a double-disc and only cost what a single disc does, about a buck-fifty.
I have the first disc of this already, so this was a good find! I’ve been listening to a lot of Bach Transcriptions lately so this works into that playlist really well!
Thanks to the recording by Anna Vinnitskaya of the Third Concerto, of course I was going to pick this one up. Also a multiple-disc release for the price of one disc!
I didn’t get this at the thrift, because almost none of Kyle Mills’ books ever end up there. But it is notible for being the last one that I needed to complete the set… after I finish the Brad Thor and Vince Flynn/Kyle Mills books, I’m going to read all of Kyle Mills’ books. I recently did a post on these authors.
Luckily/Unluckily, I didn’t find too many books over the past three weeks. But these were all good ones, the USS Indianapolis book is nothing but stories from the survivors. The Ambrose book, The Victors, I’d thought I had already, but didn’t. The Romanovs comes at a good time as I just watched a really good documentary on them. High-Tech Warfare is part of a general sort of set that I like because it had great art of the subject matter. Grant: A Biography is only the second book in the house dedictated to President Grant. After seeing the miniseries on him a few years ago, I’ve been wanting to read more about the guy. Breakout is on the famous battle in the Korean War, a subject I have yet to seriously dive into.
Well, a few weeks after declaring that thrifting wasn’t a thing we were going to do anymore (because there’s no more room for my libraries to grow, and Dad was trying not to buy stuff anyway), we hit four thrifts this week as he was looking for something particular for a certain price. Two things, actually, and we found one of the two. But I’m not going into a thrift and leave behind some good finds! I think we’ll be back on the wagon after this trip!
What a great batch of books, and every single one was half-price! Usually I have to put a bunch of full-price books back, because they put those out in anticipation of Half-Off Saturday. These are all great, but The Battle for North Africa is the one I’m interested in most of all. The campaigns there are a subject I don’t know that much about. I’d be okay reading any of them at any time. That’s the problem with my library, there aren’t any weaker books to weed out.
The Grieg: Lyric Pieces by Leif Ove Andsnes was a nice find, since he’s one of the pianists I collect and actually make a point to listen to.
The two Bach: The Keyboard Concertos discs are items I’ve seen before and wasn’t able to get; I collect Angela Hewett’s recordings but don’t specifically listen to her like I do Hélène Grimaud, but I do listen from time-to-time and always wanted these particular recordings. Amazing that I found them at a thrift!
I have many renditions of Brahms’ A German Requiem, but it was a favorite of my Mom, and an amazing work anyway. Everybody should have a copy.
All of these were only two bucks apiece… and all but Ronin was still in the shrink-wrap! None of these are filler, either… Cliffhanger is one that I re-watched a few years ago, and I’d forgotten how good a movie it was.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I’m not a Star Trek fan, but the originals are things I can watch and enjoy as I grew up with them. (Except Star Trek 5 and 6, my interest stops after #4). The original series is great! ST: TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager are really hit-and-miss, and I stopped after a few episodes of Enterprise. Since then I’ve sampled what has come out since, and wow. It’s like every franchise out there, not just Trek, is being run by people who just don’t understand what they are dealing with. They have great music, special effects, acting, props, costumes, design… and there can be great scenes and ideas (Force Awakens‘ Tie Fighter chase of the Millennium Falcon, abandoned Star Destroyer wrecks, for example) but the stories are awful and packed with social politics on top of that. I’ve learned not to get too upset about it as there are far bigger issues to deal with in life, and a lot of other things to be doing than getting all upset that people are ruining movie and television franchises. It’s just the way things are.
Ronin is one that slips through the cracks… it’s actually a really good movie. The car chases are fantastic, and by fantastic, I mean Jade and Bullitt kind of fantastic, not Fast & Furious fantastical. Plus, De Niro. I watched this one tonight!
USS Indianapolis is one of those movies like Greyhound that I was just waiting for to arrive at a good price, except I’d forgotten about it. I know that the actual ship USS Indianapolis has an amazing story, I have a few books about it, but I really have no idea what I’m going to be seeing. Looking forward to watching this one soon!
Jason Bourne leaves only one Bourne movie left to finish the five-movie set for me… I need #4 (the one without Matt Damon) and I’ll be good. I last watched the first three movies a few years ago, great series! Interesting how it is an action/spy kind of movie, like John Wick or The Equalizer (Not the new series with ‘Queen Latifah’, I’m talking about the two movies with Denzel Washington) yet, like those, it is it’s own thing entirely. (The new Equalizer is one of those franchises that isn’t being rebooted very well. Wow. It is so bad!) I watched the original Equalizer with Edward Woodward back in the day, and that is one of my favorites from back in the day that I still don’t have on physical media.
I don’t like thrifting; There are hordes of rude people, narrow isles, people in my way (how dare they!), crowded parking lots, (Saturday is half-off day, so it’s packed) traffic, etc.
So why have I been doing it? My dad and I go (went) every week and also stop for lunch at our favorite restaurants, such as Culver’s or the Wishbone. That’s always a good time, and I have to admit, with thrifts, the thrill-of-the-hunt is a big draw, something that helps me deal with all of the annoying things that thrifting inflicts. There are so many good books, cds, and DVD/Blu-ray out there, and one never knows what one will find. Sometimes, there’s nothing, but often, there are some fantastic deals on items I never would have run across anywhere else.
But after maybe about five years of this, (was it longer than that? Maybe?) I’m just out of room. I’ve purchased some fantastic libraries, which is great, but the next step is to start stacking books on the floor. I’ve done that before, and I really don’t like it. Books should be on shelves, not in boxes or stacked on a floor. I already have a few boxes of cds on the floor of my office, which isn’t something that I want going on. But there is literally nowhere else to put them. And every week, I’m getting more in that I have to catalog and sort, and that is time that I’m not using to actually enjoy what I have. This constant thrill-of-the-hunt finally has to come to an end. Which is sad. But my libraries are at a very good place, with plenty of varied options to read, hear, and watch.
It was a good time for a long time, but now we’re just going to go out to lunch and take care of errands on Saturdays. And then home for a quiet Saturday afternoon of reading, instead of dealing with the new acquisitions. I read on Saturdays now, but it’s going to be nice to be doing less at my computer in cataloging new buys when I could be reading on any given quiet Saturday afternoon.
And I will also admit that I very much understand why people pack their houses with collections of stuff; that thrill-of-the-hunt is a lot of fun, but at some point one has to stop and assess where their boundaries should be with collecting.
When I was a kid, I used to have this stack of comics that I would read every day, and when I read the comic on top, I’d transfer it to the bottom, and so on until they rotated back to the top. Every once in a while, I’d get a new stack of comics at the flea market, and that was always a huge deal; my point is that I didn’t have much, but I really used what I had.
And video games back in the day; I didn’t have an Atari, everybody else did. So any time I could get playing a friend’s Atari, Colecovision, Odyssey 2, or Intellivision, that time was gold. When I did get my Atari, the Nintendo was released, and although I could play it all of the time at my cousin’s (good times!), he only had a few games, so we played those over and over, even if we couldn’t get anywhere with them. It’s what we had. And it was a good thing, because we’d have never beaten or eventually enjoy them if we’d been inundated with lots of choices. Again, the point of that story is that one doesn’t have to have a great big library; it’s nice, and there’s nothing wrong with having a good library, but what good is it if you don’t use it? It’s just stuff on a shelf if it’s not used.
Everybody should be reading a book on Saturday afternoons.
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