This Week's Acquisitions

In honor of the Little Professor's weekly feature "This Week's Acqusitions" I present you with Becky's Bumper Book crop. I haven't acquired this many books at once in years.

It all started last Sunday when Harvard Book Store had its semi-annual Frequent Buyer Card sale. The store opened an hour early and by 8:30 a.m. the place was packed with book-buyers, who roamed the store in ones and twos with shopping baskets filled with books. I think bookstore attendance was better than church attendance in Cambridge this past Sunday!

I acquired, for 20% off:

1. Robert Appelbaum & John Wood Sweet, eds. Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World. (This one is dissertation-related and therefore indispensible.)


2. Edward L. Ayers, What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History. (I thought this book might help me talk more about why I can be considered an historian of the U.S. South. So, job-related, and therefore indispensible.)


3. Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders. (I own everything else ever written by Bernard Bailyn, why not this one too?)


4. Gordon S. Wood, The American Revolution: A History. (I'm writing a syllabus on the American Revolution and I wanted to see if this book would make an appropriate textbook for the class.)


5. Janwillem van der Wettering, Murder in Amsterdam. (Even dissertators need to have some fun!

Then, later in the week, I got a book I ordered off ABEbooks.com. I've recently developed a penchant for good memoirs, and I bought a hardcover first edition of Inga Clendinnen, Tiger's Eye, for $1.50. How could I resist?

And, after my hair cut yesterday, I discovered the Square has acquired a new used bookstore, Raven Books. (Raven does not have a website and unfortunately for those of you not within driving distance of the Square, does no web-based business.) Raven has a fabulous Early American History section with many publishers' remainders of rare scholarly finds. So:

1. Allan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade.


2. Andrew Levy, The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father who Freed his Slaves.


3. John K. Nelson, A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1740.

All of those are dissertation-related, but there were many others I had to resist in the name of my budget. I'll go back next week!