Toppling Towers of Books....

Riley and I were book saling fools last week :)  There were a couple of great used book sales in our area that we just couldn't pass up.  We are now in the process of sorting and culling for our upcoming Christmas Sale....stay tuned for that.

Can you imagine Riley's dismay, after taking a break from sorting and stacking, when she came to find Levi's handwork in toppling and commingling her piles...YIKES!  :(

 

Oh well, such is life here on Drywood Creek ;-)  She has since resorted and stacked her piles.  

A couple of  books that I was especially excited to find were Henry David Thoreau, A Man For Our Time by James Daugherty and Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred Holmes.  We are huge fans of Daugherty's work.  This particular book of Thoreau's writing was selected and illustrated by Daugherty.  I found the "Introduction" most fascinating.  

Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, MA.  He lived at a time when the American Constitution was young, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were breaking ground for wagon trains heading west, the iron horse was pushing progress to the Mississippi, Yankee clipper ships were bringing back exotic cargo, and gold was discovered in California.  To think, Thoreau's contemporaries, just to name a few, were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I was particularly intrigued by the last lines of the author's introduction (words in brackets are mine)....

"He (Thoreau) was a victim of consumption and bravely endured a long illness.  In this last hours his aunt at his bedside asked that question always so dreadful to the Yankee soul: "Henry, have you made your peace with God?" 

"I did not know that we had ever quarreled," he said."  

In Badger Saints and Sinners, Holmes relates the adventures of people who helped shape Wisconsin history.  The inside cover flap states, "Mr. Holmes has had a most extensive contact with the men, the places, the factual sources out of which this book was produced.....Mr Holmes knew personally many of the people he writes about."  The book contains illustrations, maps, and photos archiving WI history.  I'm excited to have what appears to be a primary source living book on the history of our state. 

Oh the treasures!  It's what I love about used sales, you just never know what you'll find!