What a joy those quirky finds are. I agree - what a great little bargain.

I'm loving the one penney books I'm finding on Amazon. I'm into reading naturalist Loren Eisely right now and I picked up three of his books for a penney each, with shipping they cost me about $3.50 each. They're not in the most spectacular condition, but then I don't feel so bad when I underline and write in the margins!

I agree with quirky little books and what treasures they can be. Sometimes they can be a surprise. One time I was in a Good Will type store rummaging through some old beat up books,and stumbled upon one that was obviously very old,very worn and the title intrigued me...Elizabeth and Her German Garden, anonymously written in 1898 and someone had written their name in it and the date 1909. Anyway,it was wonderful and even though the author's name wasn't mentioned anywhere in my copy I Googled it by title and what a surprise to find out that she had written Enchanted April..one of my all time favorite films which I've watched dozens of times. I have now read all her books.

Marda. I've red a couple of her other books too. Isn't her full name Elizabeth von Armin (or something like that. I'm too lazy to Google this morning)

And Suzanne, don't you love Amazon's used books? Not exactly the same tactile pleasure of rummaging through the dusty stacks of a used book store, but when you're looking for something specific, it can't be beat. I was ordering 6months of books for my book group at the end of the year & got As I Lay Dying for 10-cents. When it came i saw it had obviously been used by a student as an assigned reading text & had annotations all through the text, which, I think is an added benefit.

I'm reading a book right now that has underlining and notations in the margins. Unfortunately the person did this with a pale yellow-gold colored pencil. It very, very difficult to read.

I'm amazed by what is underlined because my opinion doesn't agree....ha ha. The passages underlined are not the ones I find memorable or important. And, the notes in the margins don't seem to relate to the material as if the person was free-associating or something. About 1/2 of the way through the book it all ceases so it seems the person didn't finish reading the book.

Another interesting thing about used books is that I find all kinds of things tucked in the pages. I've found entire letters, a very old airlines intinerary stub for a trip in Europe and back to the U.S., ticket stubs, etc.

The letters are fascinating. I wonder about the people who wrote them and the "issues" that are discussed. One was written back in the early '60's by a young girl and I often wonder what happened to her.

Good memory Andie. Yes,except the last name is Arnim..and I had to look it up to be sure. Her books are the kind one should read on a lazy summer day under a tree.

My most memorable used book story occurred many years ago when I was looking through some old garden books. An elderly lady walked up to me and asked me if I was interested in very old garden books and I told her I collected them. She broke out into a big smile and told me that she had to get rid of her collection and couldn't bear to give them to just anyone. I gave her my address and she sent me a list of what she had and then sent me which ever ones I wanted. One of them turned out to be a first edition. Gardeners and book lovers seem to me to be such generous people in sharing what they have.

I treasure my older gardening books too for the notes...or flower seed lists or receipts found inside. I even enjoy my own marginal notes in books I've had for 20-30 years...LOL I've an old Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening which was my first "serious" gardenbook purchase in about 1970...every plant I grew for the next 30 years is marked in there, plus those I wanted someday (a much longer list). Same thing with tropical plant books, cookbooks. I can trace my learning curves, successes and failures through the years.

Andie, I'll bet you'd like a book by Daniel Pool, "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew", all about 19th century England. Covers all those things you read about in old novels like Presentation at Court, rules of Precedence of Bishops, Barristers & Baronets, The Country House Visit, Vermin and Poachers and Keepers. In fact after glancing through it just now, I see lots of exclamation points, underlinings...a sure sign that I found lots I didn't know ...nust reread. josh

When I was studying horticulture, I'd signed up for an advanced plant physiology course in plant responses to the light spectrum.....not only for photosynthesis, but things like bud initiation, and effects on growth. The university bookstore never did receive enough textbooks for the course, so had to drop it midstream for lack of a book. It's always been interesting to me, and a field I need to know about because I grow photoperiodic plant material.

I was browsing the local library's used book bins, and came upon a very well written little book with exactly the information presented by that class. It sits in my reference library now and I've read it several times. I paid 25 cents for it and still cannot figure out how it made its way to this library because technical data is not their strong point.

Josh I own "What Jane Austen Ate..." and I just love it. As I love 19th Century literature, I've referred to it more than once when reading an old Trollope novel.

Mqarda, I love old gardening books too. The fact that a woman would give you your pick of her library is a treasure.

I also love old cookbooks. I've got old ones from my mother, my grandmother & my great aunt. I love looking at the old recipes cut from newspapers, or given by friends that are stuck in the pages, along with menus for dinners & luncheons. In an old Joy of Cooking I also found one of my mom's old ration books from WWII. It's nice to know I share these pleasure with all of you.

Andie, my mother gave me an auction copy of the Joy of Cooking. The publication date is somewhere in 1940s. To me, it's still the bible of basic cooking, and is the one sitting out in my book holder by the stove, always turned to the last meal I cooked. LOL. Today's issues are still good, but not nearly as focused on the type of cooking I still do. My mother also has a cooking book from the mid eighteen hundreds. It gets opened seldom, as it's so fragile. And, in her trunks downstairs are years and years of consecutive issues of one woman's magazine. I forget which, but know it runs from the late 1800s into early nineteen hundreds because she gave an issue to my grandparents as it was the year they were married, in 1884. Reading them is like going "through the looking glass" into another time.

The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery

The Wise Garden Encyclopedia

Suzy, what a treasure of old women's magazines. I'll bet very few libraries have collections dating back that far. Most libraries weren't even in existence back then! Before moving a few years ago I had quite a few old magazines (but none before about 1911) which I had found through the years. The advertisements were marvelous...especially for cars and appliances. And I loved giving a Life magazine featuring Elvis' first week in the Army to my SIL who was a big fan (although that one cost me $10 as I remember). Most were only 10 to 25 cents though. Better than any history book for getting a real sense of the times...especially those published during WWII.

I recently bought on sale the 75th year edition of Joy of Cooking to supplement my worn copy of 1964. Haven't had a chance to study it yet but it's supposed to go back to basics.

A good thread...thanks, Andie. Another Trollope fan...josh

Suzy, You now understand why it took my mom & I a whole week to clean out my great aunt's house after she had to go to a nursing home. It was like an archaeological dig as she was a saver. We found boxes of magazines & in her basement she had National Geographics all lined up in order by date on shelves. They went back to 1915!! We had to keep stopping the actual work to go through these things.

DH's favorite cookbook is one of my mom's called The American Woman's Cook Book. It has a publication date of 1939. I had it rebound about 20 years ago, but it's falling apart once again.

Josh, I agree with you about the old Life magazines. In the library where I grew up they were in big bound volumes in teh reading room & I loved to go there and just leaf through them as a kid.