Freebies

Not that I even need any more books to add to my "to-be-read" pile, but....every time I go to the dump, I have to check out the dump "library" (have written about this place before) . To be honest, the possibility of getting some new(free) books and mags is what makes me want to go to the dump!

This week, when I stopped in after dropping off my recyclables, I took home the following books(in addition to a few recent issues of The New Yorker mag--perfect for having in the car with me , so I can read something while I wait for R to be finished with cross-country practice):

The first book, maybe a little outdated but I think maybe still worth reading,
"A Russian Princess Remembers" (hardcover edition,1989)
From the book jacket:
"Among the remarkable stories of human fortitude that Gorbachev's glasnost policy has brought into the open, none is more engaging and dramatic than that of Ekaterina Meshcherskaya. Now eighty-five and living in Moscow in three cramped rooms, surrounded by the few photographs and icons left to her, the princess has written a memoir that bridges the Soviet present and the Russian past and makes both come alive."

Even though I have heard of her name before, I have yet to read a Joanna Trollope(an ancestor of Anthony Trollope?)novel. So, I'll likely start with "A Spanish Lover"(1993), deemed "A Hugely Enjoyable Book" by one Miranda Seymour of the Sunday Times right on the front of the paperback cover. Hmmm...um, okay. We shall see.

Then, I found the classic "A Room Of One's Own" by Virgina Woolf.
The 70's Seymour Chwast-like(actually it's John Alcorn) illustration of the front cover is what drew me in and I figured since I have never read this seminal book, I should give this slim paperback edition a try sometime. From the book's back cover,
"Future historians will place Mrs. Woolf's little book beside Mary Wollstonecraft's The Rights Of Women and John Stuart Mill's The Subjection Of Women. It does for the intellectual and spiritual liberation of women what those works did for the political emancipation. But a A Room of One's Own outshines them both in genius."














And, finally, a book I just never got around to reading, even though a few years back this book was everywhere.
"The Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya- Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells.
If I don't get around to reading it, I can always pass it along to R to read.
Here's one the many slightly dippy, overly effusive review blurbs from the back cover:
"One heck of a rollicking good read...You'll laugh. You'll cry. But you'll mostly laugh and want to offer Wells a hearty merci."
Wow...I can't believe someone actually used that old "you'll laugh, you'll cry..." line!

So, not a bad lot, considering they were all in good condition and interesting sounding books I haven't yet read...and they were completely free and for the taking. And I can always return them to the dump "library" and pass them on to anyone else who might be interested afterwards.