Vacation Book Haul
At the end of August and beginning of September, my husband and I took a cruise to celebrate our 20 year anniversary. The cruise ported out of New York and traveled to Massachusetts, Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. One of the things I enjoyed most was visiting a book store at every destination.
The first book I picked up was Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman, and it was totally accidental. D wanted to see the Brooklynn Bridge. I was pretty tired. By this point in the day we had done quite a bit of walking around, but we had gone back to the hotel to rest a bit so I put on my big girl pants and we headed out again. After viewing the bridge, we decided to figure out what we wanted to eat for dinner. As we were walking, I spotted a bookstore across the street and determined that we had to go inside. The bookstore? McNally Jackson. I was browsing when I saw Still Life with Remorse and the cover was so beautiful. It was the only one and it was signed! I had to have it.
Our first stop after we boarded the ship and began cruising was Boston Massachusetts. We had decided to walk the Freedom Trail and took an Uber from the port over to the start of the Freedom Trail. I asked the driver if there were any good book shops in the area where we would be walking the trail and as luck would have it, we passed right by Brattle Book Shop, which was about a block away from the welcome center and Freedom Trail starting point. Once we walked the trail, we stopped by Brattle Book Shop before we headed to Fenway Park. There, I found Ballynahinch Postcards by Peter Fallon, a poetry collection. As it turns out, this copy was inscribed. It is a limited edition print run of 1000 copies. I didn’t find this out until I got home and looked up more information about it. I just really loved the cover art and I also enjoy poetry so I decided to take it home.
In Bar Harbor, Maine, we visited Maine’s Oldest Book Store, Sherman’s.
It was there that I purchased Wendy Cope’s Collected Poems and Joan Didion’s Blue Nights memoir. [I feel that I should mention here that I am quite fond of Wendy Cope’s work.] I finished reading Blue Nights not long after I returned home from the trip. [I have since started Wild by Cheryl Strayed, but am getting through it much more slowly.]
In New Brunswick, I picked up Dead Mom Walking by Rachel Matlow and in Nova Scotia I found I‘ve Tried Being Nice by Ann Leary.
Have you noticed a trend?
Currently I am really into memoirs so anything that I picked up that wasn’t poetry, was a memoir or collection of essays. I may have mentioned that I’m a mood reader… Therefore, you may find that I suddenly switch directions after I get off of my memoir kick and you might find me engrossed in one mystery/thriller after another. Then again, I could be feeling the memoirs for a while. It’s hard to tell really.
Have you picked up any good books lately? I’d love to hear about them!