Ophelia’s Books in Fremont, Seattle
Needless to say this is one of my favorite bookstores.
Reading Choices January 2, 2017
I’m forever working through my pile of unread books. The pile of unreads grows faster than the pile of reads. Makes me think of the Walt Disney film Fantasia back in the 1940’s. One of the first films I ever saw – probably in the University Theater in Harvard Square. The water kept coming despite Mickey Mouse frantically trying to keep ahead of the deluge.
Here’s a book for the New Year 2017. Truth Like the Sun by Jim Lynch. An interesting fictional take on Seattle’s history since the World’s Fair in 1962. I found this book 2nd hand at Eagle Harbor Books over on Bainbridge Island. It had lurked near the bottom of my unreads pile for about a year.
Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair November 4, 2016
Here are my purchases from the Seattle Book Fair back in early October. Busy times – I have just unpacked the bag containing my purchases. I loved the Fair – and would have liked to repeat the experience in Boston this past weekend when we were on the East Coast. Can’t have too much of a good thing – but maybe not enough money or room in my suitcase! There are so many books out there I want to read and/or collect.
Shopping For Books February 22, 2016
What could be easier – working on my genealogy, sitting at home, using the computer – I find a reference to a publication and decide to check on whether I can find it on Amazon. Surprise. It’s available and not too expensive. I press a few more keys and the publication is on its way.
Birthdays June 3, 2015
Today is Larry McMurty’s birthday. He is 79 – approximately 6 months older than I am at 78.. He is one of my favorite authors. He is having an interesting life and his books certainly reflect his life and interests. Following are a couple of references.
from Wikipedia
Career[edit]
McMurtry has won the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters on three occasions; in 1962, for Horseman, Pass By; in 1967, for The Last Picture Show, which he shared with Tom Pendleton‘s The Iron Orchard; and in 1986, for Lonesome Dove. He has also won the Amon G. Carter award for periodical prose in 1966, for Texas: Good Times Gone or Here Again?.[4][5] In 1964 he was awarded a Guggenheimgrant. In 1960, McMurtry was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where he studied the craft of fiction under novelist Wallace Stegner and alongside a number of other writers, including Ken Kesey,Peter S. Beagle, Robert Stone, and Gordon Lish. McMurtry and Kesey remained friends after McMurtry left California and returned to Texas, and Kesey’s famous cross-country trip with his Merry Pranksters in a day-glo painted school bus ‘Further‘ included a stop at McMurtry’s home in Houston, described in Tom Wolfe‘s New-Journalistic book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At the time (1964), McMurtry was also a Lecturer in English at Rice University. His students were entertained with stories of Hollywood and the filming of Hud for which he was consulting.
McMurtry has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books[6] and is a past president of PEN.[7][8][9]
In 1986, McMurtry received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.
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Contact Info: View agent, manager and publicist Represent Larry McMurtry? Add or change photosBusy Days December 24, 2014
Yesterday we went to Half Price Books over in the University District. Not that I needed any more books, but I always like to browse. I’m currently reading Black Star Nairobi by Mukoma Wa Ngugi. A crime novel set in Nairobi Kenya. It was a surprising find back in early November in the Toadstool Bookstore in Milford New Hampshire. 
It is quite good but I am not doing it justice by reading only 5-10 pages late at night.
The Toadstool Bookstore also had birthday cards and this is the one Ian chose for me – this was a month early but you can see that maybe he was thinking ahead of getting a cat. (We got Katerina shortly after we arrived back in Seattle after our trip to the East Coast.)
I did not do justice to the previous book I finally finished. 
99 Girdles on the Wall. A memoir about holding it in, letting go and coming to grips (to quote the cover), by Elena Louise Richmond. I bought this book from the author who was selling it along with her paintings and cards at a craft fair at the Finnish Lutheran Church. I found it rather a strange book with a lot of angst and guilt and surprises and a happy ending. Again, only reading a few pages at a time – and trying to knit as well.
and this is the result, Scarf 7
To return to browsing at Half Price Books – guess what caught my eye – a favorite which I have read many times but no longer own. I decided it would be a good addition to my shelves and that I wanted to reread it.
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Isak Dinesen
It’s Not The Same July 30, 2011
Somehow for me there is not the same “frisson” about finding a book on Amazon or Alibris or any of the other book search engines. Recently, in Victoria B.C., I was browsing casually in Renaissance Books, a “fine books” used book store. Lots of books of great interest – I could have bought more than a few if the mood had been right. I was nearing the end of my browse when I happened to glance at the shelf labelled collectible paperbacks. Frisson moment. There were several My Friends paperbacks – the My Friends books were written back in the 1960’s. The author was Jane Duncan, a Scottish author, possibly more famous for her children’s books about Janet of Reachfar.
It was my mother who discovered the My Friends books years ago and recommended them to me. They are charming. In more recent years I have spotted a few here and there and have bought them for old times sake. I paid nominal amounts for them and they are sitting on my bookshelf.
Now each of the ones sitting on the shelf at Renaissance Books has a price of $15. The proprietor there told me they are now rare and have become collectibles. So now I find that I have several collectibles on my shelf. Fun. I plan to keep them on my shelf for a while longer. But just think, I could go over to Victoria again maybe and finance the trip with my books.
My “My Friends” collection
