Twice a year,the church near my home has a rummage sale and in the past,I've found quite a few good book bargains there. Most of the time it's feast or famine but this weekend,I picked up a few good titles including a pair of Agatha Christie novels with funky cool 1970s covers and a nice hardbound edition of A Christmas Carol.
However,I'm going to highlight here those that I consider to be the cream of the crop amongst the books found for sale that day and are in my home library now.
First up is Gypsy Sixpence,a 1949 historical romance written by Edison Marshall. Marshall was a vet of WWI and known for his numerous adventure novels,with a few of them being made into movies starring the likes of Tyrone Power(Son of Fury,1942)and Kirk Douglas(The Vikings,1958).
His best known work was Yankee Pasha which was adapted into a 1954 film,starring Jeff Chandler as a wealthy 19th century American looking for his sweetheart in Morocco. Mamie Van Doren had her first major movie role in this film as a jealous slave girl who fought over Chandler with his true love(Rhonda Fleming). Gypsy Sixpence has no film version but it should be a fun old school read,nonetheless:
Next,I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a British hardcover edition of Absolutely Fabulous 2,a collection of scripts from the show's second season. I happen to have the first set of Ab Fab scripts,so this was a lucky find indeed.
The book also has several color in-lays of pictures from such great episodes as "Morocco" "Birth"(where Patsy gives her unedited opinion about reproductive rights)and "Death",the last one showcasing Eddy's spirited philosophy on the matter in song:
Another title I unearthed was Apartment 3B by Patricia Scanlan,an Irish writer along the lines of Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes. As the name of the book suggests,the center of the action here revolves around a rather desirable living space and the folks who are clamoring to buy it while figuring out their personal problems and love lives.
Scanlan has quite a number of books,some of which will be coming to America soon(my copy of Apartment 3B is a British edition)and I look forward to discovering a new female friendly author:
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a story I'm well familiar with,due to the 1974 film version with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw,but haven't read the actual novel it's based on(written by John Godey aka Morton Freedgood)so spotting it on the rummage sale table seemed like the perfect time to give it a try.
In case you haven't heard of it before,the plot involves a hijacking of a NYC subway car,with police and other officials trying to get one step ahead of the bad guys who have more than one trick up their sleeve.
A made for TV version was made in 1998 and a Hollywood remake with John Travolta and Denzel Washington hit the theaters in 2009 but neither of them could touch the original film. Yet another case of if it ain't broke,don't fix it!:
Granted,any kind of used book sale is a hit or miss in terms of finding something really good but when you do,it's so worth it. As much as new technology is and will change the way we read,nothing truly beats the pleasure of beholding the physical version of a book,no matter where you get it:
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