emuse: Christian Aid book sale 2017

As usual, I headed off to Edinburgh on the first day of the Christian Aid book sale! I was a bit earlier than usual, but luckily the rain stayed off while I was queuing. It did come on very heavy later, which meant I had to stay a bit longer (what a shame!) so I could see the outside part of the sale without getting soaked.

One of my important (to me) finds this year was a copy of The Chalet School in the Oberland. This means that, with only the second-last book in the series to find, I can start my re-read of the approximately 60-book series, which I hope to complete by next year's sale! I was a bit worried about getting to the stage of completing my collection, but in the future I can work towards having the unabridged original versions of those that are heavily cut, so that still gives me something to collect! I also got volume 2 of a Chalet School encyclopaedia, not realising that it was part of a probably 4-part series and not a sequel to the one I have!

Another great find was a childhood fave of mine, Ask A Silly Question, from 1973, which has pages divided up so that you can create characters a la exquisite corpse. This copy is absolutely pristine, with the pages still joined together, so it was a great bargain at 50p (the only flaw being that the 50p price tag left a mark). It's in much better condition than my copy, but I'm going to donate this good copy to my young nephews as the spiral binding on my copy is broken and wouldn't be safe for them to play with.

I was pleased to get a few books about trees, because Dad and I were recently trying to identify trees on a walk. And some cheap Observer guides to add to my small but quickly growing collection. The Ladybird crochet book is one I've been looking for for a while, and the illustrations really brought back memories. I studied the poems of Catullus in Latin class at school (which makes it sound like I went to a really posh school, but it certainly wasn't!) so I'm looking forward to refreshing my memory of those. The Blue Peter cookery book is one I had as a child, and I'd recently been thinking about one of the recipes in it, for Nasi Goreng.

As usual I managed to find a few books on a Japanese theme. And I also found one about the dome in Florence, which is an amazing marvel of engineering. This is a children's book with lovely line illustrations (which would actually make great colouring book designs) but I actually found it in the architecture section!

OK, so here's the big list!

Collins Gem Trees 50p

Observer Butterflies £2

Observer Wild Flowers £1

Observer Sea and Seashore £2

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter 80p

The Tale of the Pie and the Patty Pan by Beatrix Potter 20p

Flower Fairies of the Garden £1

Ladybird Trees £1

Ladybird Crochet £1

The Blue Peter book of Gorgeous Grub 50p

Make it Easy Lions - Modelling 50p

The Poems of Catullus £1

The Chalet School in the Oberland by Elinor M Brent-Dyer £6

The World of the Japanese Garden by Toshitaka Morita £3

Everything in its Place by Rebecca Winward £2

Suminagashi: The Japanese Art of Marbling by Anne Chambers £2

A Celebration of Japanese Gardens by Sadao Hibi £4

Filippo's Dome by Anne Rockwell £4

The Chalet School Encyclopaedia Volume 2 by Alison McCallum £8

Men on the Moon £1

Ask a Silly Question by Kent Salisbury and Joan Allen 50p

Japanese fan 20p

Mei from My Neighbour Totoro 50p

Coming to a grand total of £42.70 for all the books I could carry!

I've discovered that there are two other book sales on in Edinburgh at the same time as this one, so next year I'm thinking of having a day off during the week to explore those ones.