Browser’s Bookstores Book Pickups

It’s been a while since I’ve done a book pick up post, but this is a special occasion.

We live in an area that has two mid-sized cities near us. A local used bookstore, Browser’s Books, has had locations in both cities for years. However, the pandemic wasn’t good to them and the owner had to make the tough decision to close his doors. Luckily for us readers (or um, book hoarders) an long-time employee bought one of the locations. So over the past couple of months they have been closing out books in preparation to combine inventories at one location and reopen under the new owner.

Which meant BOOK SALES!

I visited both store a couple of times during their sales to pick up books and below you can see all the treasures I re-homed.

Classic science fiction books are always at the top of our buy list. We picked up the final two Family d’Alembert books by EE “Doc” Smith and a Lensman book to plug a hole in our collection. Trail of the Seahawks just looked awesome. And being from the NW we’re Seahawks footballs fans. Limits is a short story collection from classic sci-fi writer Larry Niven. We’ve both read the first Flash Gordon book so picking up the second for less than a dollar was a no-brainer.

Next to science fiction we are always on the look out for good fantasy. I have liked some of Andre Norton and Songsmith has a really good premise. I was hoping to get started on Mercedes Lackey books during the sale, but alas, someone had beaten me to it and her shelf was pretty cleaned out, except for these two she wrote with Andre Norton. Having played through several of the Fable games (anyone remember that dumb x-box kinect version of Fable? The dumb horse always ran into the flaming fire balls for me.) Anyway I’m interest in digging into more Fable lore in this book. The two Stephen R Lawhead books plug holes in my collection, which is now pretty close to 100% of what he wrote.

I’ve seen this book on the Twitter-space and it sounded interesting. Anyone read it? How quickly should I find time to get to it?

I got this book for my engineering minded husband.

And then… I picked up a whole ton of coloring and craft books.

This paper soldiers book is awesome. I can’t wait to color and cut out these. The Great Indians of California book is interesting but doubt remains about it’s accuracy.

I don’t know why they had some many “Indians of…” coloring books, but I bought them cause they might be interesting to color. My sister made me go back and find another copy of the Southwest Indians one for her because her college project was on Navajo Art. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in art and now works in a fancy gallery in Santa Fe. She says the book is highly inaccurate.

More coloring books! If you’ve never tried a stain glass coloring book you are missing out. I already have life in Medieval Europe so Life in Ancient Rome seemed like a good choice.

I mistook the pattern book for a coloring book, but it’s full of cute pictures. I actually plan to do a tole painting video on my Youtube Channel: Art with Arwen. My paternal grandmother did tole painting and I’d like to learn it and honor the artwork she did.

These are the two I am most excited for! I do Queen Anne Boleyn Historical Impersonation as a hobby and love just about everything Tudor. So it was a super treat to find these two coloring/ paper doll books. I plan on doing a more in-depth review of them later.

I did pick up a few other gift books too. In all it was exciting to get to go buy books and not really have to worry about how much I was spending. It is, however, bittersweet because I hate to see a local business have to close down.

Leave me a comment and tell me what did you think of my pickups? I’d love to hear your thoughts.