During the Booksale Bonanza

organized by the Washoe County Friends of the Library, I picked up a shitload of books, and I don't think I'm done yet.

I picked up some vintage stuff, such as Adlai Stevenson's greatest speeches; a biography of Estes Kefauver; a book on Casablanca, a book by Aljean Harmetz about the making of Gone With the Wind that I have been wanting to get for years; a book on Hollywood musicals which is a companion book to the studio history books which came out in the 1970s and 1980s (and I have them all); a book about Chang and Eng Bunker called The Two; Barbara Olson's ironically-titled The Final Days that was published after her own final days; Bob Woodward's book about W. Mark Felt, The Secret Man; Angus Bowmer's signed autobiography which also tells the story of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; an autobiography and biography of Ingrid Bergman, a 1950s book by political cartoonist Herblock; a Time-Life coffee table book about "legends"; a 1976 book about the Patty Hearst kidnapping by her one-time fiance Steven Weed; a biography of journalist Nancy Dickerson by her son John; Losing America by Robert Byrd; and last but not least, No Bed of Roses, a 1978 autobiography by actress Joan Fontaine.

I REALLY wanted to get that last title most of all. I wanted to know just why it is she and her sister Olivia de Havilland have NEVER gotten along and haven't been in touch at all since their mother died in the mid-1970s. Supposedly from the time she was a very, very young child, Olivia couldn't stand the thought of having a younger sibling, and there the seeds of a decades-long rivalry began. It was almost as epic as the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

I suppose there is enough blame on both sides, but you'd think with Olivia being 91 and Joan 90, they'd put their differences aside. Fat chance at this late date.

Some of the gory details about these sisters can be found here.

Anyway, despite getting all of these books, they set me back less than $60. You can't get a good deal like anywhere, not even on eBay.