You never know what you’ll find

The Irvine Heritage Park Library is having a sale of remaindered books – racks of stuff at a quarter a pop. I was idly poking through the selection last night after the Chorale concert, musing about how my wife would react to my bringing home a couple of dozen new books (the answer to that question would certainly have been “not well”). Still, I thought, there’s not much danger. It was clear that the books on display had been remaindered for a reason – most of the selection consisted of dog-eared self-help guides and trashy romance novels and mysteries. And then, what do I see but a well-thumbed copy of “ATL Internals”, by Brent Rector and Chris Sells. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty high on the esoteric scale. I used it all the time in 1999 and 2000 when I was learning how to write software components for Windows, and it’s a great resource, but it’s not exactly mainstream material for a local branch library. I looked inside in case one of my old colleagues had identified themselves, but the book was mute. Luckily I still have my own copy, so I didn’t feel the need to rustle up a quarter and take it home.

What’s going to happen to the houseful of books we do already have, now that it’s been supplemented with the detritus of a working life spent in a software developer’s office, is a matter for another post.