Re-posted from July 26, 2005:
Great Connecticut towns, Plus Loot from the annual super-stupendous Pequot Library Book Sale - worth a drive if you and your family like books.
Photo is one of the many early 19th Century sea captain's houses in elegant Southport, the loveliest and most exclusive town in CT (with runners-up as Litchfield and Old Lyme, but not to omit the understated, historic, and noteworthy havens for tasteful and genteel Yankee gentlemen and gentleladies - da gentry, ya know - in Roxbury, Washington, Sharon, Kent, Warren, Essex, Norfolk, Salisbury, Sachem's Head, Granby, Harwinton, Farmington, Pomfret, Centerbrook, Avon, Southbury, Woodbury, Southington, Greenfield Hill (in Fairfield), and Lakeville, among a few others that do not jump to mind).
The reference is to Southport's Pequot Library's famous annual used-book sale. (Last weekend of July.) Here's my loot - Christmas in July - at the request of The Dylanologist, hardcovers only: Life Magazine Photo History of WW2, The Guns of August by Tuchman, The Lost World by Crichton, The Atlas of Ancient Archeology by Jacquetta Hawkes, A Shropshire Lad by AE Housman, A Countryman's Woods by Hal Borland, Five Seasons by Yehoshua, Days of Awe by Agnon, Blue Highways by Wm Least Heat Moon, Clausewitz on War, Hotels and Country Inns in Italy, The Fatal Shore by Hughes, English Verse: Longfellow to Rupert Brooke, Restoration Poets: Milton to Goldsmith, A Travel Guide to Scotland and the Islands, The Great Gardens of Britain, The Master Sniper by Hunter, An Illustrated History of Firearms by Hogg, The Oxford Annotated Bible, Life in the Castle in Medieval England by Burke, The Encyclopedia of Rock Music (1994), The Atlas of Early Man by Jacquetta Hawkes, English Weapons and Warfare 449-1660, The American Heritage History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton, The Founding Fish by McPhee, The Complete Works of Paul Klee, Atlas of the Epic Land Battles of History, and about ten Robert Parkers. Plus about ten other misc. paperbacks. Could not find an excellent book on the identification of eastern trees, but I know most of them anyway. Total under $100.
If I had been around on Saturday instead of late Sunday afternoon, it would have been more. This book sale keeps me safely and harmlessly occupied for months. Remembered when I got home that I had already read the Hughes and the Tuchman - I guess I liked them. The Housman was a replacement for an overly-used and disintegrating paperback.
And no need to travel if you can read travel guides - a return to the amazing and hospitable Turkey is next on my list, but maybe after Provence. Then Scotland again for grouse-shooting and scotch-tasting - absolutely no golf - golf is for strivers and the Japanese - then Tuscany again. That's the long-range plan, not including routine hunting trips to Manitoba and New Brunswick or Maine.
Photo: One of the many fine 19th Century sea-captain's homes in Southport, CT
Editor's note: Hope the Dylanologist is home from Montana this weekend to take a drive to Southport.
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic Southport, CT, the annual Pequot Library Book Sale is a blast, and coming up soon. Last year, they had 140,000 used books for sale.You can purchase, for a pittance, a year's worth of reading material, a
Tracked: Jul 22, 12:30
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic Southport, CT, the annual Pequot Library Book Sale is a blast, and coming up soon. Last year, they had 140,000 used books for sale, all sorted by category by the volunteers. You can purchase,
Tracked: Jul 18, 14:39
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic Southport, CT, the annual Pequot Library Book Sale is a blast, and coming up soon. Last year, they had 140,000 used books for sale, all sorted by category by the volunteers. You can purchase,
Tracked: Jul 18, 14:41
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic Southport, CT, the annual Pequot Library Book Sale is a blast, and coming up soon. Last year, they had 140,000 used books for sale, all sorted by category by the volunteers. You can purchase,
Tracked: Jul 18, 14:43