Town Library Book Sale & Rethinking Reading Wolf Hall

For the first time in eight years, I didn't spend much time working on our library book sale. I admit I felt some guilt about it, but I work more than ever now, and it was the year to pass on the torch to others who have more time. Fewer books were donated this year, yet I managed to find plenty that I felt MUST be added to my collection.

I was delighted to drop a Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery, The Yellow Room, into my bag. It was originally published in 1945, although the edition I bought was a clean modern mass-market paperback from 1973. I've never read her, and because a number of you have enjoyed her books, I thought I'd try her out. 

I snatched up a very clean copy of the first volume of Bob Dylan's Chronicles. The early era of Bob Dylan's music is what interests me most, so reading about his early life seems the perfect fit.

A hardbound edition of Simon Schama's A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3500 B.C.-1603 A.D. was another title I grabbed before anyone else could. Does anyone know why there's a question mark in the middle of the title? Anyway, this book is right up my alley because I'm very interested in the ancient history of Britain, probably because most of my ancestors came from the British Isles. This is the companion book to the series broadcast on BBC and later PBS years ago. Did any of you watch it?

A handsome hardcover copy of Hilary Mantel's Bringing Up The Bodies was my next pick. But you know, I haven't read her first title set in Tudor England, Wolf Hall. I chose not to read it when it was first published, based on a fallacious assumption. Since my teens, I have overdosed on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and all the rest, so I felt I could not bear to read another novel about the Tudor era. But a dear friend told me that she appreciated Wolf Hall because it cast Cromwell in such a different light from all the movies and books she'd read in the past. And I thought, that would be a refreshing read!  So now I've got to snatch up a copy of Wolf Hall somewhere, which shouldn't be too difficult.