Have I got a bookstore for you

I discovered the best bookstore last weekend. After an uncomfortable three hours of allergy skin testing (hives can be such a drag, can't they?), I decided book buying would be a more soothing experience. I came across the New England Mobile Book Fair on my way home. As soon as I walked in the door, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It reminded me a little bit of the Strand in NYC, but I honestly think this store was better. It was essentially one huge warehouse of books - new and used. And everything was discounted! And they had everything imaginable!!!!

I will say though that you do have to go with the intention of spending a lot of time there. The amount they have is overwhelming and they have their collection (their fiction section at least) organized by publisher rather than author. So if you're looking for something in particular you really have to know where to look or ask one of the shopkeepers (who are super knowledgeable and helpful). The children's and young adult sections were very impressive as well - multiple copies of anything you could be looking for.

Obviously, I was not about to leave this store empty handed. Here is a list of my lovely purchases.

There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children by Melissa Fay Greene - (Booklist)...The horrific numbers behind the AIDS pandemic in Africa, "the most terrible epidemic in human history," have little resonance for most people in the West: "the ridiculous numbers wash over most of us." But this searing account humanizes the statistics through heartbreaking, intimate stories of what it is like for young orphans left alone in Ethiopia. Greene's story focuses on one rescuer, Haregewoin Teferra, who has opened her home and compound in a rickety hillside neighborhood of Addis Ababa and taken in hundreds of the untouchables thrown in the streets and left at her door...

Grayson by Lynne Cox - (Publisher's Weekly)...On a clear California morning when Cox (Swimming to Antarctica) was 17 years old, she had an unusual experience that stayed with her for 30 years, creating a spiritual foundation for her personal and professional success. In this slim and crisp memoir, Cox details a morning swim off the coast of California that took an unexpected turn: returning to shore, she discovered that she was being followed by a baby gray whale that had been separated from its mother. As Cox developed a rapport with the whale, she took on the responsibility of keeping it at sea until it was reunited with its mother...

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - (Publishers Weekly)...Thriller writer Connolly (Every Dead Thing) turns from criminal fears to primal fears in this enchanting novel about a 12-year-old English boy, David, who is thrust into a realm where eternal stories and fairy tales assume an often gruesome reality...

1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die by Peter Ackroyd and Peter Boxall

Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten - this one I got for 40% off!

On a completely unrelated note - anyone see Smallville last night? Am I the only one obsessed with that show? Great episode!