The To-Be-Read pile grows

I went thrift shopping on Tuesday, and came home with three books. I don't know if I was really intending to buy books, but I've been feeling the urge to browse through some shelves lately, and invariably one finds something that can't be left behind. And for once, I'm entirely pleased with my purchases.

Rereadings, edited by Anne Fadiman. I love Anne Fadiman. Ex Libris was probably my first serious book about books, and I vividly remember the lovely June day on which I read it. Rereadings is not quite as wonderful, probably because it's a collection of other writers and not just Anne Fadiman, but it's lovely all the same, and this little hardcover is nearly spotless. Plus, the back jacket flap was stuck between the pages as a bookmark. Whoever got distracted from their reading was on page 160, reading Allegra Goodman's essay about rereading Pride and Prejudice. I love knowing things like this about past readers.

A Meaningful Life, by L.J. Davis. The NYRB Classics are lovely, both in cover design and in actual content. I've never read or even heard of this book, but the back cover tells me it's a black comedy about a man who buys a falling down house in Brooklyn, New York, and puts everything into fixing up the house, on the theory that this will make his life better.

Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books, by Paul Collins. This is the author's story of his move from San Francisco to Hay-on-Wye, Wales, a town that has 1500 people and 40 bookstores. You know how I feel about books about books. This one sounds lovely.And Happy July!