Even though I am struggling with the existential dilemma that I now own more books, magazines and comic books than I could ever hope to read before I get to the end of this mortal coil, I keep going to get more.
I've been obsessed with big charity book sales for a long time, but had no idea the local 24-hour sale was on until my pal Nik mentioned that he was off to it. I ended up going in the quiet time on a Saturday night, (although I felt a little put out that it was strictly a 24-hour sale, since there was a break in the early morning hours, there is a very particular vibe about book sales at one in the morning).
Anyway, I'm glad I went, for the bargains were tremendous during my brief browsing time - a couple of hardback graphic novels about crime and Rasputin; some Love and Rockets chunkiness that I found in the kids section and really had to get out of there; an illustrated lesson on the story of the blues; a classic Monty Python book from back in the day that I once read when I was seven and it scared the shit out of me, so that'll be fun to get back to; some kind of Goodies boxset which I am also slightly dreading because I also haven't watched them since the early 80s; some books about war and NZ's drinking culture; and some Dr Who annuals - all for a couple of bucks each.
And then I went to another one on a Friday afternoon, and it was another excellent Nik-pick, because I stumbled across an unimaginably good score - a small box full of the Benny Summerfield Virgin New Adventures books for $25.
I completed a collection of the Doctor Who books in the series a few years back, and have had some books in the Benny series after they lost the Who franchise since I got them off the shelves in the mid 90s. But I've always been on the lookout since and if I was lucky I found a new one a year, and I still had more than a dozen to complete the set, until last Friday.
I was all always looking because Professor Bernice Summerfield is legitimately one of the top five characters in all of Doctor Who, and while I lost track of her various adventures - I only know about her escapades with the Unbound Doctor from what I see in the reviews in DWM - I have only read six or seven of these Virgin books (all by trusted authors), and want to see where Benny goes next, and now I can, because they were just giving them away at the Rotary Club Book Sale.
I'm currently reading all the Doctor Who New Adventures, one a month, and am just about up to Happy Endings, so the end was in sight. This means I'm going to have to spend another couple of years reading Benny's adventures every month, which doesn't sound so bad.
I literally have dreams about a nerd score like this, so it feels a bit unreal when you see a box of those familiar spines in the corner of the room containing the kids books. I thought I was dreaming when I saw them there, and I'm not entirely convinced I'm not still in that dream.
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