I’m trying to cut down on the amount of paper books I have. I’m without fixed abode at the moment, so every couple of months I have to pack up and move house. As a result, I’m limiting my possessions to things I can comfortably fit in my car. My sister and mother have both offered me storage space at their places, but I don’t want to intrude too much on their generosity. Instead I’ve been leaning highly on the wonderful public libraries we have here in Christchurch.
And then this happened.
To be fair, I knew that going to the Bishopdale Rotary’s annual Book-a-rama would probably be a danger, but I didn’t anticipate the sheer scale of the event. Doors opened at 10:00. I got there about ten past. There were no parking spaces at the venue, or in the neighbouring streets. The recreation centre where the secondhand book sale was held was so crammed with books and people that at one point, I was trapped unable to move for about five minutes because of the sheer amount of people searching the paperback tables.
I was exhausted pretty quickly (I don’t handle crowds well), and left without scanning half the tables there. But I’m pretty pleased with my haul! Especially the three Trollope novels which were my main reason for going to the Book-a-rama. A very kind friend read Gentlemen Don’t Murder and gave me a lot of feedback, which can be basically condensed as ‘needs more research and a rewrite.’ She recommended Trollope as an authority on the intersection of class and money in the Victorian mind, and suggested I get paper copies as they were better for note-taking and book marking, which she thought I would want to do. I’m about halfway through an e-book version of Dr Thorne, and I’m itching to take notes, so I’m very happy to have found it in paperback!
The rest are a mix of ambition, research, nostalgia and just fun. I’ve got a high-fantasy Ancient World type story percolating, and I’ve been doing a lot of world building–which reminded me of reading the David and Leigh Eddings books as a teen. I’m not sure how well they’ll hold up to an adult reading, but either way, it will be interesting and hopefully informative to see how other writers handle major world building. Marion Zimmer-Bradley comes highly recommended by a podcast I love. Famous Cases of Scotland Yard, P. D. James and the Sophie Hannah Poirot novel, will hopefully serve as further inspiration for Gentlemen Don’t Murder, while the regency Mills & Boons are not only great fun, but will hopefully be good examples of how to keep to a brisk story structure without compromising on world building and historical accuracy.
All this—and they had a sausage sizzle outside.
Christchurch people, the Book-a-rama continues Saturday and Sunday at the Bishopdale YMCA, behind the library. I recommend checking it out, but be warned, it is extremely popular!