I know you’re not a fan of Amazon, but I find I can support small vendors and library sales and other odd booksellers by purchasing used books through the site. The original “Bibliofind” web sales service for used book dealers was started in Great Barrington, MA so I felt I was supporting a local business by using it before Amazon bought them out for a few million bucks. And, until the last month or so, the only book store in this area was a Barnes & Noble, so I was only robbing corporate Peter to pay corporate Paul, if you ask me.

Although the shipping cost is now a firm $3.99 with no discount for combined purchases, some of the bargains are amazing. I just bought the recently superceded, 1008-page edition of the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary (in unused condition, with dust jacket and thumb index) for $2.12 as a gift for a graduating student who has a phenomenal vocabulary and a love of words. I hope he thinks that I spent $50 – he needed something good to happen to him in school.

I get a lot of enrichment stuff for my classroom through the used book bargains, too. I just bought The Illustrated Book of Myths by Philip ($1.28) and Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty by Masoff (99 cents). The hunter-gatherer in me is very content to find good, cheap books on the Internet – or along the Amazon, as it were. Is that so wrong?

I posted an answer to your Weekly Geeks question for my review of Dracula – come by and check it out when you get a chance. :)

Have a great time with your family, Julie. Thanks again for the haircut.

http://www.inthelouvre.org/sunday-salon/the-sunday-salon-reading-writing-mini-reviews/

Thanks for asking, I had a lot of fun trying to come up with intelligent answers! :p