Second Hand

There’s a big neighborhood yard sale going on today in our neighborhood. Cars everywhere, people getting in and out. We’re not participating this time, but I’ve been people watching out front a bit, and I don’t see much merchandise getting moved out.

People don’t really want to buy things at yard sales anymore. What they want to do is make a token payment of, say, fifty cents, and then drive away with your car and your youngest child and give you a dirty look on their way out for not giving them a good enough deal.

We tried selling things at the last city-wide yard sale and we didn’t sell much. No one wants what we don’t want anymore. And I’m amazed at how used books don’t sell. You can hardly give them away. I don’t know if people just don’t read anymore or what.

Which reminds me.

This is how it works: I was with my dad at the doctor’s office for his regular check up last week and they had some books for sale there. Seemed weird, but it was some kind of fund raiser. Besides, it was more interesting than the magazines. What’s with the magazines? They used to have good magazines in doctor’s offices. Now they just throw their used medical journals out and who cares if you pass out from boredom by the time they call your name.

Anyway. In this little book sale, I found a book by Ira Levin, who is the author of Rosemary’s Baby. I read Rosemary’s Baby years ago, and I felt the book and the movie were a bit over rated. But that’s just me. Whatever. The book I found is called “This Perfect Day,” which just happens to be a dystopian fantasy in the order of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. And, so far, This Perfect Day is WAY better than Rosemary’s Baby, even though I had never even heard of it before. No movie, that I know of, has been made from it. It was not even on my radar screen. But it’s very well written so far and kind of creepy. We’ll see how it ends up, as I’m only about fifty or so pages into it so far.

Never heard of it. It cost me one dollar, in hardback, original print from 1970. It’s in rough shape, but still. I have a book to read that I’m enjoying reading. It’s so good that all my other reading has been put on the back burner. And that’s how it works sometimes.

So. You reading anything good?



Peace to you.



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