It was difficult to put this book down, and fleetingly the thought occurred to me of 'accidentally' leaving with it, especially since it was bound to have had a very small print run and would definitely have been out of print for many years already.
Last time we went to Adelaide I saw it in the window of our favourite second hand bookshop. Fifty bucks. Bastards! Not only that, but my haggling skills were a total failure on this occasion. The seller knew that he could sell it quickly at the marked price and bluntly told me so. In the end I had to resort to a device to make me feel a bit better that made me suspect I may have some Irish blood in me: I demanded they drop the price of that particular book by ten bucks, but in return I'll pay ten bucks more than the asking price on F.M.Cornford's From Religion to Philosophy, and guess what? IT WORKED! Leaving the shop, I sort of thought: "I can haz trezha
."Isn't it lovely when you find something you really wanted, but thought there's next to no chance of finding it?
Oh, and that's not all. A couple of hours earlier Charlou picked up a first edition hardcover copy of Unweaving the Rainbow in another second hand bookshop we stumbled upon by sheer accident.
That shop had no street presence whatsoever. It was an appendix at the very back of a shop named The Antique Toy Market, or something like that.
Wonderful!
