I ended the last Chapter by saying that I had some books lined up that were totally different from what I'd previously told you about. This is true. I found a number of books in my "stacks" from a genre that is new to this Blog. I also planned to do a follow-up on something I told you about several months ago but you know what Burns said about the best laid plans. Things got in the way.
I was reading 3 books - a political thriller I found during my search; the first of a series I ordered months ago; and one of the "new genre" books, but I kept coming across others that piqued my interest. One of these was a Fantasy novel by Steven Brust. It was a sequel and I wound up ordering its predecessor from Better World Books because they don't charge for Shipping & Handling. Around the same time, I ordered a few books from Thrift Books (including 1 that I told you about). They charge for S&H unless the order is over $10. My total was over and the prices, by themselves, were less then Better Worlds. Plus, I had earned a $5 Credit so I was really ahead of the game. Then I wound up having problems with both orders.
The Better World order got stuck in a shipping center in the Midwest for way longer then it should've (I was following it using the Post Office Tracker). I contacted them and they agreed that there was a problem and recredited me. Two days later, the book showed up. I contacted them again and wound up mailing them a check.
I also used the Tracker to follow the Thrift Book order. It was going smoothly until the Tracker said my package was delivered. I didn't get it. I waited until the next day and met the mailman when he came by. He said he'd left it in front of my Apartment door. I contacted the Company and they said they'd send out replacements immediately and if the original package should show up I could just keep it, donate it, or whatever. Turns out my Super saw the package and picked it up so it wouldn't get stolen. I got it back that afternoon. I contacted the company but they didn't reply. The replacements came in individually over the next couple of weeks.
I now had 4 new books to check out, one of which I added to the 3 that I was already reading (which was taking longer then usual due to some personal situations). I had just gotten back to a comfortable routine when I realized that my local Library would be holding their annual Weekend Book Sale. The price scale was simple - hardcovers were $1 and softcovers (regardless of size) were $.50. I decided to go on the Friday just to see if I could find something by Hemmingway. I ended up with 6 softcovers for a total of $3. I went back on Saturday because I was obsessing over a book I hadn't taken the first day and I got it along with 5 others for another $3. All together, I wound up with:
2 books by Ernest Hemmingway
2 by Mark Twain
2 by Ross McDonald (Lew Archer mysteries)
1 by Lewis Carroll (both of his classics in one volume)
1 by Edward Rutherford (the one I went back for)
1 by Phillip Roth
1 by Paul Austin (three short novellas)
1 by Bryan Burrough (the FBI and crime 1933-1934)
1 by Joyce Carol Oates (fictionalized last days of famous people)
FYI: these 12 books cost me $6 out-of-pocket and have a total face value of $153.38. Not bad. This means, of course, that over the last few weeks I've added 16 books to my "To Be Read" pile.
Even though I spent a lot of time accumulating and sampling these new books I did continue to read the ones I had and did manage to finish one. The "new genre" I mentioned earlier deals with The Pulps and - at least for now - will be a part of the "Off The Shelf" category. A little history first - before there were comic books people had The Pulps to whet their appetites for adventure,
mystery, romance, and science fiction (among other categories). They'd been in existence since the late 1800's until the early 1950's when comic books started to take over the market. They were referred to as Pulps because of the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on (a opposed to Glossies). Several of the heroes (or antiheroes) that were popular then are believed to have influenced some of the early comic book characters. For example, The Shadow is believed to have had an influence on the creation of The Batman. Also, Superman is believed to rely heavily on
possibly the most famous of the Pulp adventurers - Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze whose first adventure is my first selection for this "new genre".
Off The Shelf - The Pulps
The Man of Bronze, Doc Savage - Kenneth Robeson* ($.75/$.75, copyright 1933, 135 pages, Paperback)
Clark Savage, Jr. - known to the world as Doc - has gone to the family office on the 86th floor of a building in Manhattan to find out how and why his father died. He's met there by his 5 close friends - Monk, a famous chemist who physically resembles his namesake; Ham, a lawyer who dresses well and carries a sword cane; Renny, a construction engineer with fists that can punch through walls; Long Tom, an electrical engineer whose thin frame covers a huge heart; and Johnny, an archeologist and geologist who wears a magnifier as the left lens in his glasses. They've just learned of the Savage property in South America where their gold comes from when a shot rings out and a window
shatters. An attack has been launched from another building and the adventure is on. There's a wild cab ride, Doc jumps off a building, and they catch the would-be assassin and discover his link to the property before he jumps to his death. Doc and his crew are off to South America to get to the bottom of things. Robeson* doesn't spend a lot of time on descriptions except for Doc and his men. His writing is plain but he knows how to keep the action flowing. It's almost like "reading" one of those old movie serials with the cliff-hanger episode endings. I enjoyed it.
(* The Robeson name was actually owned by Street & Smith Publications and was used on several other magazines. Doc's adventures were actually written by Lester Dent who was contemptuous of the work but gladly took the money they paid him.)
That's all I have for now.
Hopefully I'll have finished the other 3 books I'm reading now and can tell you about them next time. Till then ...
Keep reading.
