And Seventy Cents: Hunting for Books, Fit the Third.

I spent $234 on books at Pulp Fiction today, and I feel a little drunk.

Or perhaps giddy is the word I'm looking for.  Because, really, when does anyone spend two hundred bucks on books?  On USED books?  Okay, mostly used, Pulp Fiction leavens its used books with new ones, and a couple of my selections were new rather than used, but still, two hundred and thirty four dollars worth of books?  How did this happen?  How did we get here?

(Needle scratch.)

On paper, this was supposed to be a bit of a vacation weekend for both Karli and I.  She was headed over to Vancouver Island with her sister Stefanie to visit her mother and stepfather, and I had booked the Friday off with the intention of having a bit of an old school long weekend:  sleep in, watch episodes of Doctor Who and Picard, play computer games, do a little book shopping, eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and otherwise have a bit of a geek holiday.*

However, life had other plans, as it so often does. I was apologetically called back into work on the Friday to help with COVID-19 related handouts and signage, which resulted in a couple of hours of overtime, and was then informed that I'd be back in on Saturday as soon as the executive group had finalized additional content.

I still had hopes of salvaging at least a bit of my weekend plan, so on Saturday morning I decided to take the current replacement list from my New Year's Resolution book logging project, head over to Pulp Fiction's Main Street location (fortuitously located somewhat close to my workplace) and hopefully find some of the books on my list before I was called in.  We had recently received our annual bonus payments at work, most of which had gone into our moving fund, but Karli and I had both taken a small dividend from the bonus, so I had some money to spend. 

Pulp Fiction proved to be a target-rich environment, and, unhampered by too much concern about cost (or baggage fees) I enthusiastically worked away at my shopping list until I had pulled out a good stack of replacements.

Deciding that I had reached a reasonable point in the process to stop (based on weight rather than price, given that I would be carrying my purchases around with me), I carried my first stack over to the till, and said, "One minute, I'll be right back," and returned to the shelves for my second and third piles of books, for a grand total of 29 new and used paperbacks.

The salesperson working the till looked at my purchases, and thoughtfully said,  "Well, I have good news for you, we have a volume discount plan on used books, so please be patient while I figure that out."   

As I waited, I noticed a familiar cover on a lower shelf behind the till - a copy of Lone Sloane: Delirius, a spectacular graphic novel by French fantasy artist Phillipe Druillet that was published in 1973 by Dragon's Dream**.  I've had a copy for years, but it was already well used when I purchased it, and sadly, over time the binding has begun to come apart.  Druillet is one of the incredible ground-breaking French fantasy artists that I discovered in the pages of Heavy Metal, the American publication of the French fantasy art magazine Métal Hurlant which was started by Druillet and fellow artist Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius) in 1974.

I interrupted the discount calculations to ask if I could take a look at the book.

Not realizing that he was preaching to the choir, the salesperson commented, "Please be careful with that, we keep it behind the counter because the binding is a bit fragile."

Fragility aside, the copy was in excellent condition, even the binding.  I checked the interior for pricing (the better class of used bookstores pencils the price on the inside flyleaf - yes, I'm looking at YOU, Re:Read in Toronto) but didn't see anything - which kind of made sense, given that the pages were all full bleed 4-colour artwork.  I asked as to the price, and was told it was $75 - a lot to pay for a used book, but I had some fun money to spend, so I decided to add it to my purchases, thereby bringing my total up to a surprising $234.

As it turned out, my timing was good. Not long after I left the store, I started to receive e-mails from work, and spent the rest of the day seated at my desk, with an expectation of going back in on Sunday as well.

Meanwhile, mixed messages from BC Ferries regarding service were making Karli and her sister nervous about getting back to the mainland, so they cut their trip short and returned to Vancouver on the Saturday rather than Sunday.

And so ended the vacation part of the weekend for both of us, but at least I managed to make some good progress on updating my library - or perhaps improving is a better word, it seems odd to say that you're updating things when one of your purchases is 47 years old.

 - Sid

* For those of you for whom this would involve going to a car show, playing golf, getting drunk and watching hockey (not necessarily in that order), hey, live your truth.


** Probably best known for their publication of Views, a collection of artwork by Roger Dean.