At long last.

I've been looking for a hard-bound copy of My Name is Asher Lev - my favorite book - for over 10 years now.  I've searched high and low for a copy.  When I did actually find copies they were way out of my price range (being that it hasn't been printed in hard copy for a really long time).

I almost cried for joy when I struck literature gold on Saturday at the book sale at our local library.  We had wandered in to the basement of the library on my way up to find a copy of this month's book club book - The Alchemist.  And it was there, in the depths of library basement, after looking at every book on the fiction aisle for an hour, that I found it.  High on a shelf in the top corner.  At last.  My Name is Asher Lev.  And the price?  $1.00. 

It was serendipity!  I snatched it up and protectively (greedily even?) carried it around with me while Blake and I each collected a rather embarrassingly high stack of books. 

Over the next hour we filled an entire moving box with beautiful books for just $29.00 (!).  We picked up beautiful leather-bound copies of Virgil, Frost, Anderson and Hemingway along with newer (almost untouched) copies of Dan Brown, Michael Lewis and Cormac McCarthy.  The pretty books complete our living room bookshelves where we can enjoy their beauty and the recent best-sellers reside in the library where they'll become tomorrow's metro/commute entertainment. 

But my favorite?  It's up in the top corner of the shelf: a reminder of where I found it.  And though the spine is rather plain, I think it's the most beautiful of all.