Book recycling success

The quantity of available books was down this year, but the Will County Book Recycling was still a success. I disposed of six books that I'll never read or re-read, and came home with five, refreshing my library and even freeing up a few inches of shelf space. Here's my haul, moving clockwise from upper left: Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (people really rave about this, and though I never really thought about reading it, it's short and free, so I took a chance); the Winter 1997 issue of Story (including stories by Nathan Englander, Chris Adrian, Brady Udall and Joyce Carol Oates); The Annotated Casey at the Bat (the poem is an old favorite, and this edition includes homages written to it, including several by Grantland Rice); John Steinbeck, A Russian Journal (with photos by the great Robert Capa); and John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (1960s bestseller by a white author who disguised himself as a black man, then immersed himself into the American South). Other than the O'Neill, I kept to my rule about only taking books that I already wanted to read, or were unique and not easy to find elsewhere.