Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Thrifted Books

I stopped at a couple of thrift stores on my way home the other day. I found this lovely old book dated 1947.
The dust jacket has kept the book in perfect condition. It is filled with the loveliest poems! For example:
SOUVENIR
What have you taken from today
To put in your store of memories?
For today was a door to be opened wide,
And you held in your hand the golden keys.
(I have a feeling I will be sharing more of the poetry found within in future posts.)See the pristine cover of the book inside the DJ:
Old Rose and Silver is another book I found a while back at another thrift shop. Not in the best condition, but it's from 1910, and the cover was just too pretty to pass up. It starts out with a woman playing the piano, and on the second page, this passage "Outside, the purple dusk of Winter twilight lay soft upon the snow. Through an opening in the evergreens the far horizon, grey as mother-of-pearl, bent down to touch the plain in a misty line that was definite yet not clear.At the left were the mountains, cold and calm, veiled with distances dim with frost. There was a step upon the stair, but the strong, straight figure in white lace did not turn away from the window, even when the door opened. The stillness was broken only by the cheerful crackle of the fire until a sweet voice asked: "Are you dreaming, Rose?"
I couldn't resist.
And then these last two paperbacks are ones I remembered from my childhood. One or the other of my sisters had them. I found these at a sale that was held in the gymnasium of a Christian school. They had some neat stuff in there!

I don't think my husband nor I will ever quit buying books. That, despite the fact that we ran out of room for them LONG ago. I don't know what to say....

7 comments:

Karen Jo said...

The passase you quoted sounds like the type of descriptive writing that Mr. Lambirth would have loved.
Love, Deb

Tina Dawn said...

Oh gosh Deb, I could have lived another 50 years very happily without being reminded of Mr. Lambirth! I once had to have a parent-teacher conference, including my DAD (rare occurence), because I flunked a 10 point daily quiz. One 10 point quiz, out of the whole year of doing really well. Even my Dad asked him why we were all there. Guess Mr. L wanted to scare me straight or something. Just looking at his buggy eyes did that for me! Moving on: Stars and dogwood blossoms, I love that book cover! Lynn McComas and I used the Secret Language book as a dictionary and made up some of our own secret words to go with. I still have it somewhere. I had a lot of the Scholastic books. The teacher would pass out a little catalog-like thing and you could order them for very little money. Maybe that started my own love affair with owning books. Don't ever apologize for loving and owning books! Love T

Heidi Ann said...

You're right - no apologies for the love of books! I just do. And I have such fond memories of the vintage Scholastic books that whenever I see one that I remember from the 60's, I want it! Meanwhile - I still hold out hope that I can have a REAL library some day. Floor to ceiling shelves to house all of our books - yes - and one of those rolling ladders! Dream big.

Tina Dawn said...

I would love to have a library like that too! All my books in one place instead of in boxes and shelves all through the house and in sheds. Love T

Heidi Ann said...

Exactly - it would make me SO happy to have all of my books in one place! We would need an awful lot of shelves, wouldn't we?

Anonymous said...

I remember that Secret Language book! Too cool how we can remember such things!

Melanie said...

I have that Ginnie book and a couple of others. I also love old Scholastic books.