Lifeline Book Fair goodies

I didn't manage to get to the Lifeline Book fair until about 4.30 yesterday, so it was lean pickings, and I probably won't get another chance to go again, unfortunately. Still, I found enough to keep me going until the next one. A couple of finds I'll leave until my camera arrives, so that I can do justice to them.

I bought a lot of books that I've been meaning to read/own for ages, the sort of collection-fillers that only a cheap sale can provide. Such as Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 and Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, both under $2. I also found a copy of Helen Garner's The First Stone, which I originally borrowed from the local library and so now I own my own copy. It's funny how few Garner books appear at the Fair. I'd say most Australian authors are there in triplicate, at least in paperback, but the only Garner book I've seen in multiple is Cosmo Cosmolino. Does this mean people hold on to their copies? Is she well loved? Or have the generation who have bought her not ready to spring-clean their libraries yet? Hmm.

Anyway, other buys:

Old hardcovers: Nevil Shute, No Highway; Elisabeth Dored, I loved Tiberius; Georgette Heyer, The Spanish Bride.

A few interesting reads: Eugenia Ginzberg, Into the Whirlwind; Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist; Georges Perec, Things: A Story of the Sixties; Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection.

Poetry: David Campbell's Collected Poems and Margaret Atwood, The Journals of Susanna Moodie (among others to be divulged later)

Biog: Pamela Stephenson, Bravemouth, and William Cook, Tragically I was an Only Twin: the Complete Peter Cook.

The only art book I bought was an old Sotheby's sale catalogue featuring Old Master drawings. Great images, and probably better than an exhibition catalogue because most of the images go to private buyers, and are rarely seen in public.

Still plenty out there, and they do replenish the shelves every few hours, so if you get the chance, it's a good cause as well as a great bookfest.

Open 10-6 today, and 10-4 tomorrow (plus there's a coffee shop so you can sit and sip while you decide what to take and what to leave behind).