Books on Cape

One of the things that's rare on Cape Cod is the chain book store. There is one Barnes &  Noble in Hyannis, but otherwise if you want to buy a book you can shop at your grocery/drugstore or choose an independent bookseller. There are quite a few book stores here which are not only independent, but also downright eccentric. If you have a taste for rare or used books there are a lot of places to enjoy them. I make regular visits to the Isaiah Thomas Bookstore which is practically around the corner from me. They have a fabulous selection of art books and local history books, plus large swathes of books of literary criticism. Craft books there are heavy on quilting. If you are looking for rare sets of vintage books this is the place to go.

Today I paid a visit to Parnassus Book Service in Yarmouthport. They have been in a 19th century building that used to be a general store since 1960. When you go inside you see books all the way to the pressed tin ceiling. Their stock is all used books as far as I can tell, with a very good stock of novels and loads of sailing and biography titles. As I browsed around I saw a lot of the titles I used to have. I've had major reductions in my book inventory several times in my life and I think all of my culls fetched up here! This may prove to be a good thing because several books I read many years ago but would like to see again are out of print and were never formatted for the Kindle. The organization of titles can be a  bit surprising - craft books were just a few shelves above Mysteries of Humanity and just around the corner from poetry, which follows cooking and wine.  The craft book selection here was very heavy on needlepoint. My selection was a  1971 printing of the Good Housekeeping New Compete Book of Needlecraft. (first copyright 1959) It's in pristine condition except for having no dust cover and chock full of timeless instruction and crazy illustrations. Click on the picture of the illustration to see the snorkel mask on the model in the dark sweater. Whose idea was that? (esc will bring you back!) Parnassus is particularly well known for having an outdoor book room where you can shop at all hours and slide your payment under the door. In case you have a reading emergency!

I've had time to knit every afternoon and have been making progress on several items. Jennifer sent me some beautiful alpaca for Christmas which has already turned into a lovely cozy cowl and in addition to two pair of socks I have two more and a wrap on the needles. No pictures - too lazy! I've been working my way through my stash - now that it is exposed and Shana can see how much I have I'd like to keep it down to one bin. Although she's quite tolerant of my need to amass and keep quantities of craft supplies she does not quite understand the concept of having great piles of the woolly stuff around "just in case".