Saturday, October 15, 2011

Library Book Sale

lithograph of Sheridan's charge at Five Forks,...Image via WikipediaI really need to be getting my notes in order and my outlines into Scrivener (OneNote having proved to be a less-than-satisfactory platform for novel-writing) in preparation for NaNoWriMo, which I plan to use to get a jump-start on the writing. Instead, I'm still doing research. Today, my research activities took the form of scrounging for cheap resource books at the Cobb County Public Library's twice-a-year book sell-off cum fundraiser.

It took 3-1/2 hours to go through half (the non-fiction half) of the tables, and I was exhausted when I got home. But happy! I made out like a bandit. I got a little magazine-sized "book" called The Concise Illustrated History of the Civil War, mostly for the reproduction of Sheridan's charge at the Battle of Five Forks (not the one pictured here). I can well imagine what Brother Bill and his comrades must have felt like seeing that coming at them.

And Long's The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865. Once I got it home I was kind of disappointed that it's not footnoted (although there is an extensive bibliography), but that was balanced out by my pleasure at the "Special Studies" section at the back, with short bits on desertion, disease, POWs, and the like.

But the pièce de résistance was Sam Abell's Distant Thunder: A Photographic Essay on the American Civil War. And to think, I almost missed it! I had already been around the barn once and was in line to check out, gazing about me, when I spotted a box labeled "History" under the "Arts" table (go figure). So I backed Tillie out of line and went to investigate, and there it was! The front cover photo is of the Wisconsin State Memorial at Vicksburg, in early morning (or early evening) fog, and it is stunning. Many of the photos are of reenactors, but never mind: It's a beautiful book.

I got these, and one just for fun--A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I wish I could use her, but she's not only the wrong period, she's a Yank. The few pages I read made me think of Claire Frazier (protagonist of Gabaldon's Outlander series). I can't wait to read it!

All this for $5.50.
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