Another reason to love Powells

Whenever I am near a Powells location with some time to kill, I stop in for a visit. With the huge number of used books and excellent recommendations, I nearly always spot a surprising find. The remainder section is surprisingly good as well. In many other stores, the remainder books are stale popular fiction novels of the James Patterson variety. Most there are are out in paperback already.

Not at Powell's. You will find a number of very good books that didn't sell quite as well. There is lots of serious history, literature and science fiction available. Even better they have piles of British editions of books on hand. Much of the time all you get from the British editions are different blurbs, spellings and crappier paper. Sometimes though you get a paperback edition while the American edition remains in pricey hardback. Other times you get a gem like I found today.

George R R Martin, author of the cruelly incomplete Song of Fire and Ice, is a prolific writer of short fiction. His short works were collected in two hard covers called Dreamssongs. I wanted to buy them when they came out, but they were too expensive. I would have gone to the library, but they aren't the sort of thing you read at once. It is for picking up as the whim takes you.

So I was thrilled that a combined British edition was on sale at Powells for ten bucks. Now if I can just find the time to read it.