I Am a Biblioholic. If You Are a Decent Person, You Will Not Sell Me Another Book.

Today's big adventure was a visit to the semi-annual Socorro Friends of the Library book sale. I love library book sales; I'd say they bear a very large portion of the blame for the ridiculously bloated state of my To-Read Pile(s). Paperback for fify cents? Hardbacks for a dollar? Let me at 'em! Before I know it, I'm grabbing weird, random books that I will later look at and wonder, "Why on Earth did I decide I needed these?" But it's a tremendously satisfying experience, anyway.

My haul this time (and I was being rather restrained) consists of:

Night Shift by Stephen King and The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Every time I go to a library sale, I end up buying some Stephen King, which I then completely fail to get around to reading before the next sale, in which I buy more Stephen King.

Julius Caeser and Four Comedies by William Shakespeare. Believe it or not, I have never read Julius Caeser. Every other American schoolkid in existence had it as assigned reading in high school, but somehow I missed out. This makes me feel sort of culturally illiterate, so I figured it was high time to rectify the oversight. And I while I was brushing up on my Shakespeare, I figured I might as well check out some of his comedies, too. Four Comedies contains A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, The Tempest and Twelfth Night, none of which I've read, either.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. I've been meaning to pick up a copy of the original Rama for quite some time. The sequels with Gentry Lee left rather a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm hoping re-reading the original will help to get it out.

Sturgeon in Orbit, a collection of stories by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon is one of the truly great science fiction writers of all time, and you can never have too much of his stuff.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. This is the novel-length version, expanded from the short story after the movie (Charly) came out. I've read the orignal short story many times, and it makes me cry every single time. I don't really see how it could be expanded out to a novel without losing something (it was, after all, absolutely perfect as it was), so I'm a little hesitant about reading this one. Still, I am kind of curious...

Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. I seem to recall reading some negative reviews of this one, but it's supposed to have a lot of in-jokes about science fiction fans and science fiction authors, and that sounded like it might be kind of fun.

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. I recall hearing good things about this one. The only book by Joan Vinge that I've read was Heaven Chronicles, which was pretty forgettable, but this is probably the book she's best known for.

False Memory by Dean Koontz. I don't know why I felt the need for more Dean Koontz. He writes entertaining books, but once you've read four or five of them, you start to realize that they're pretty much all exactly the same.

Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll. I've got one of Carroll's books (The Wooden Sea) on my Pile already, but I've never read anything by him. I've heard good things about him, though, and this one looked interesting.

Gila Descending: A Southwestern Journey by M.H. Salmon. Some guy's account of his trip down the Gila river through Arizona and New Mexico. I've done some backpacking along the Gila, myself, ages ago, so this kind of appealed to me.

Top 10 of Everything 2001 by Russell Ash. Exactly what it sounds like: a big book of Top Ten lists. Top 10 most endagered species, top 10 longest bridges (of various types), top 10 movies of various decades, top 10 chocolate brands in the US, top 10 worst oil spills, top ten Olympic volleyball teams... You get the idea. Looks like fun.

And for all this, I paid a grand total of $8.50, and they threw in a nice paper shopping bag with handles. Did I mention that I love library sales?