Finds

This weekend, I acquired each of the following books at a very low price:

-- The Art of Travel, a collection of essays by Henry James.

(Hooray!)

-- La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, by Francis Parkman

-- Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else, by Joe Queenan

-- The Return of Martin Guerre, by Natalie Zemon Davis

-- North American Indians, by George Catlin

-- A Boy's Own Story, by Edmund White

This last book is a 1982 edition with an overleaf description that goes out of its way to appeal to a mainstream audience. "The young gay hero yearns to express his forbidden sexuality -- but his longing is universal (for isn't sexuality in some way 'forbidden' to all adolescents?)."

Actually, no. Sorry.

At Capitol Hill Books, the gentleman at the counter gave me the Parkman volume for free, after I waited just a couple minutes for him to finish reminiscing with a customer about his time in the Navy. Any day I get a free book is a good day.

Here are some more books: