“SAP” is my term for the cheap paperback you find at SA, Goodwill, SPCA, or other thrift stores. Most are 25-50 cents in price, written by no-name or lesser known authors, and usually are suspense- or intrique- oriented. In order to qualify, they must be have yellowed pages. I am rereading some of my favorites right now, which include The Apocalypse Brigade and The Z-Papers .
A copy of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell withe the spin broken, though you can read it online nowadays.
The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. I got mine at a Goodwill back in the late 1980s. I still take it out and reread my favorite parts sometimes.
A fifty-cent Pocket Books paperback of Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything (1959 edition, with stills from the Major Motion Picture on the cover!). One of my favorite good/bad movies, and one of my favorite good/bad books.
It’s a classic dimestore paperback: broken spine, cheap pulp paper, glue coming apart. And a special introductory offer to Time magazine insert (a five-year subscription for $20!).
Are we bragging or reporting in a sheepish manner?
I buy many books at the local Goodwill. At times I’ve made real finds (a copy of Fungi from Yuggoth for 25 cents and others) but most of the books I buy are crap.
I have noticed a decline in my reading taste. I will buy anything by James Rollins, Matt Reilly, or Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I also have a four-foot stack of cheap paperbacks with submarines on the cover that I will one day work my way through.
My most recent find was a introduction to the recorder, which is allowing me to drive The Wife to distraction (why there was a recorder around a house full of piano and string players is a different question entirely).
The Sand Pebbles, Richard McKenna. (Not the edition pictured in this link, though.)
I have found some of the best books in my library at the “Mount Dora Friends of the Library Book Nook.” Mt. Dora is a pretty, quaint town in the middle of Lake County, Florida, where rednecks birth and many retire. At the public library, there is a corner where lots of used books are sold.
My favorite would be From Here to Eternity, which I liked much better than the movie. I also see A Tale of Two Cities there periodically, which would count as my favorite had I bought it at the Book Nook.
Um, I’m chagrined to admit I had to have the coffee-stained copy of the Unauthorized Biography of Robin Williams, written smack dab in the middle of Mork & Mindy’s meteoric rise. It had some pages where heads of Robin were cut out by the previous owner; they were black and white pics, so did they think they were going to pass them off as real?
I’ve gotten quite a few good books that way: Marathon Man, Fear of Flying, Letters From The Earth to name a few. But the best one I found was a first edition of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.
Now, you want to talk about musical discoveries? My first car had an 8-track player in it, and I used it until it broke. Nothing like shopping for music at the Rescue Mission. I found J. Geil’s first album, the Muppet Movie soundtrack, and the Star Wars soundtrack done with Moog synthesizer.
Not quite Sally Ann, but I used to use the take a book/leave a book sections of military transit places. The absolute best book I’d ever picked up was Silver Pigs, by Lindsay Davis. Since then I’ve read most of the continuing adventures of M. Didius Falco, and enjoyed them greatly.
Ooof! That dude gave you a horrible review! 