Thursday, September 13, 2012

BOOK BUYS

A Max Brand here, a Mack Bolan there

I haven't done a "Book Buys" post for a while now. For the past few weeks, I have been buying secondhand paperbacks faster than I can read them. I bet I said that the last time around, too. The novels I picked up are in good condition and cost Rs.10 to 20 each [$1 = Rs.50]. I bought multiples of Don Pendleton (Mack Bolan), Ed McBain, Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, Ruth Rendell, J.R. Roberts (Robert J. Randisi), Colin Dexter, Max Brand, Leo Kessler, and Nick Carter. I bought a few other books too but that would be really stretching it, or showing off, wouldn't it?

Here are some of the paperbacks I couldn't resist buying. The Elmore Leornard cover is the only one that doesn't match. Mine is a Pan Books edition.







Have I started reading any of these or the ones I haven't showcased here? Not yet, because I'm still reading the books I bought the year before last. What's bothering me, though, are the novels I didn't pick up from the old bookstore I drop in on my way home every evening—you seriously don't want to know what I have left behind!

6 comments:

  1. The Max Brand cover is handsome.

    Hard to find a 2nd hand bookseller with westerns here. And I miss the book sales at the library in this little desert town because I so rarely go there.

    My weakness is shopping at AbeBooks and bookcloseouts.com. What saves me being inundated is letting books collect in the shopping cart and waiting for another day to actually buy them. The gradually increasing tide, however, are the review copies of new books that come in.

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    1. Ron, it surely is! It was tough deciding between this Max Brand cover and another, THE STREAK, which is equally eye-catching. Perhaps, I ought to have displayed both.

      Secondhand bookstores are disappearing from Bombay too and the one I frequent is actually a small regular bookshop that happens to sell used books and magazines. The store owner displays some hundred-odd books everyday though he has far more than that number locked up in a room nearby.

      I have only bought a couple of new ebooks online so far, never physical editions.

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  2. Yeah, I like the Brand one. that's one of the negatives to free ebooks on Gutenberg, where they have a lot of Brand, there's no cover.

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    1. Charles, that's why I put the Max Brand cover right on top. I often read ebooks without covers and then look them up elsewhere on the internet, especially if I'm going to write about them here. The handful of free ebooks sites I visit owe their lot to Project Gutenberg so basically one is looking at the same inventory of books, journals and magazines.

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  3. Don't know the others, but have enjoyed many an Elmore Leonard book

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    1. Parrish Lantern, I have read at least a couple of books by most of the authors featured here except for John D. MacDonald and I'm currently reading my first book by him. Hope to write about it here soon.

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