Monday, November 28, 2005

Old Books

Yesterday I finished the book I've been working on, so today I gathered up all the research books and took them back to the various libraries. I own a lot of books I use for research on different subjects, but when I'm writing something like a historical novel I always have a big stack of books from the libraries, too.

But the point is that while I was out, I stopped by Half Price Books and found a few decent items in their vintage paperback section, where the pickings have been pretty slim lately. I bought:

THE NAKED NIGHT, a World War II novel by Dan Brennan, published by Lion Books in 1954. I'm not familiar with this author, but I like WWII novels and I also tend to pick up Lion Books when I find them.

WIDOWS WON'T WAIT, by Dolores Hitchens, published by Dell, no date but I'd say late Fifties, a reprint of a mystery novel originally published in hardback under the title NETS TO CATCH THE WIND. Appears to be about the widow of a murdered cop trying to catch the killer. I've never read anything by Hitchens, but I've heard good things about her work.

THE BIG HEAT, by William P. McGivern, a Pocket Books reprint probably from the early Sixties. The bag is so taped up I haven't tried to get the book out yet. I have several of McGivern's mystery novels, but not this one until now.

THE SPAWN OF THE DEATH MACHINE, by Ted White, a science-fiction novel published by Paperback Library in 1968, with a Jeff Jones cover.

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, digest magazine from September 1959, with stories by Murray Leinster, Algis Budrys, and Christopher Anvil, among others. Cover by Kelly Freas.

WHY SO DEAD?, by "Ellery Queen", Popular Library, 1966, and WHAT'S IN THE DARK, by "Ellery Queen", Popular Library, 1968 -- two of the books in the paperback series featuring eyepatch-wearing cop Tim Corrigan. I've never read any of these and don't remember right off-hand who actually wrote them. Paul Fairman? Talmage Powell? All I remember is that they weren't written by Fred Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, the originators of the Queen name.

Not a great haul, by any means, but not bad, especially considering that most of these were a dollar and none of them were over two bucks.

1 comment:

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