My birthday was a week ago last Saturday (April 20th).
You know what this means, right?
Right. I’ve been buying books.
I ordered some things off of my Amazon wish list, since there were several items available used in the right combination of price and condition. Right now, I’m reading Tuchman’s Practicing History: Selected Essays: since that’s a collection of shorter work, I’m also planning to start Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War and alternate the two for variety.
(And, yes, I kind of want to see the Netflix series based on Five Came Back. Between that and “The Highwaymen”, I’m really tempted to get a Netflix trial, even though I refuse to pay for television.)
(Other things that were in the Amazon batch: The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics, which won an Edgar a few years back. The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life. The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, for your obligatory Catholic content (CathCon?). More seriously, I like a lot of O’Connor, I know Rod Dreher is a big Walker Percy fan and I’d like to understand why, and I’m kind of interested in Merton. (Though, going back to Mr. Dreher again, I’m not sure now that I want to read Merton.) And The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy.)
Mike the Musicologist came up Friday night and we spent the weekend running around. We had a very good joint birthday dinner (Lawrence‘s is a few days before mine) at Lonesome Dove.
After dinner, we went back to Lawrence‘s and watched the 1943 “Stormy Weather“. “Stormy Weather” sort of presents itself as a loose “biography” of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (renamed “Bill Williamson” for the film). In truth, the biographical elements are an extremely thin skeleton…upon which is hung a whole bunch of fantastic musical performances by Robinson, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, the Nicholas Brothers, and others.
(I love this entry from Wikipedia about the Nicholas Brothers: “Gregory Hines declared that if their biography were ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one now could emulate them.“)
Unfortunately, our plans for Sunday fell through (they caught the kangaroo) but we were able to spend the afternoon talking about kitchen remodeling with some friends of ours. Yes, this is the exciting life of a 54-year-old.
I took Monday off (another perk of being a full-time Cisco employee: you get a free day off on or around your birthday) and went running errands with Mom. This involved stopping at both the Round Rock and central Half-Price Books locations. And HPB sent me a 15% off your total purchase coupon for my birthday. And it just so happened that they had a whole bunch of interesting gun books…
The Black Rifle, R. Blake Stevens and Edward C. Ezell. The central HPB had a copy of this for $50 (less my 15%) and claims it is out of print: Amazon says they’ll be getting copies in on May 6th, and they’re wanting $73.95 for it. I don’t know if Amazon is getting some sort of revised edition or what, but I kind of doubt it: E.C. Ezell is, tragically, dead, and Collector Grade has already published a followup book by a different author…
The Cornered Cat: A Woman’s Guide to Concealed Carry by Kathy Jackson. Nothing really special about this, but the Round Rock HPB had several nice copies, and it was a KR Training recommended book that I didn’t have.
The .50-caliber Rifle Construction Manual: With Easy-to-Follow Full-Scale Drawings. Out of print with the demise of Paladin, and the cheapest used copy on Amazon is currently $65.83. Found at Round Rock for $12.98 (minus 15%).
Firearms Assembly : The NRA Guide to Pistols and Revolvers and Firearms Assembly: The NRA Guide to Rifles and Shotguns: not spectacular finds, but both are in very good shape, were extremely cheap even before the 15% off coupon, and were needed reference works for the gun library. I’ll probably pick up the 2007 revisions as well, if I find them in good shape and cheap, but I don’t think the disassembly/reassembly instructions for a pre-64 Model 70 or a S&W Model 41 are really going to change that much…
Make Ready with Matt Jacques: took a flyer on this DVD, really more as a gift for MtM than for myself. Another one of those “hey, this is cheap, I have a coupon, Mike might like it, why not?” deals.
And speaking of Mike, birthday present from him:
Yes, that’s right. It’s a tactical spork.
Note the hidden plastic knife. Very useful for slipping through metal detectors, so you can take out that Russian mole in the lavatory of that 747 bound for Karachi. Thanks, Mike!