Weekend Literary Wanderings

+ Our regular visit to the Sandwich Antiques Market had me taking a pass on both a lovely antique secretary/bookcase (made by the Gunn Furniture Co. of Grand Rapids, MI) as well as nice old hardcovers of Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt, Sinclair Lewis' Dodsworth and Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat. Guess I just wasn't in a buying mood. Fortunately, the weather was very pleasant and the pork tenderloin sandwich was quite tasty. (My companions, needless to say, were as charming and lovely as ever.)

+ Marty Weil at the Ephemera blog posts a very rare matchbook from Random House (circa 1945) touting The Modern Library ("Over 300 of the Greatest Books of All Time, 95c and $1.45 a Copy"). I shudder at the thought of how bloated and unwieldly my library would be if those prices were still in effect today.

+ I'm plodding my way through Voices for Peace. The plodding is not at all due to any deficiency in the writing, which is actually quite good, but instead that I've only been reading it just before bed when I'm at my most drowsy. I've only been able to read a few pages each night before nodding off, but over the weekend I willfully read some of the book during the day when I'm moderately coherent. The book is a very impassioned collection of essays which point to the folly of bombing Afghanistan as a response to 9/11. (The book was published well before the invasion of Iraq, but the arguments against bombing Afghanistan prove to be even more compelling in their applicability to Iraq.) Interesting stuff, and I'm sure I'll be posting numerous excerpts from the book once I finally finish it.