20c books

We had a lunch meetup today at a cafe in Riccarton. Otakuu was supposed to be in town this weekend, so we’d organised the meetup to coincide with her visit, but unfortunately she couldn’t make it. Oh well, hopefully we’ll see her in Dunedin in a few weeks, anyway. Lytteltonwitch, non-fiction, and awhina and meerkitten were there however, and we had a very pleasant lunch sitting in the sun outside the cafe.

I gave In a Strange Garden back to lytteltonwitch so she can release it on the Dunedin trip, and passed on the copy of Somebodies and Nobodies by Robert W Fuller that boreal had given me for awhina. And awhina and lytteltonwitch had both brought along books for me: awhina gave me a copy of The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett that she’d found in a second-hand shop (not realising that I’ve already got a couple of copies – but that’s ok, it was a lovely thought, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find it a good home), and lytteltonwitch had thought Ratha’s Creature by Clare Bell (a science fiction book featuring cats :-)) sounded like just my cup of tea.

After lunch, I released Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and Expensive Habits by Peter Mayle on nearby tables, and then we wandered down the street to a charity bookshop that always has a well-laden 20c table.

The two elderly women running the shop were amused (if slightly bemused) by lytteltonwitch’s request that they look after Ballycumber while she browsed, and then were even more amused when we started bringing armfuls of books up to the counter. Every time one of us came back with more books, they’d say something like “that’ll keep you busy”. By my count, I ended up buying 56 books, and I’ve got no idea how many the others bought. Most of the ones I bought were just Mills & Boons with amusing or appropriate titles that I’ll use for themed releases (I’m certainly not going to read them!).

Of course, now I’ve got to actually register them all…