damn, November already?

Another awesome Goodwill score: found a signed copy of Elmore Leonard's Riding The Rap! It's a large print edition, dedicated to the Maximillian hotel, which according to Google is either in Prague, Czech Republic or Malcesine, Italy. Perhaps there's another hotel with the same name in the United States somewhere... The full inscription reads "To the Maximillian, a fine hotel, with thanks for a most enjoyable stay. - Elmore Leonard, 4-02"

At any rate, I think that's more interesting than a book that's simply signed to a random person that showed up at a book signing. "Dutch" himself either left this book there or presented it to the manager or someone who worked at the hotel, and in the years since it migrated to the shelf in the Midwest where I picked it up! I wasn't even looking for signed books, I just grabbed it because it was a hardback and one I hadn't read yet, and didn't notice the signature until I got home...

Speaking of books, I mentioned PaperbackSwap and SwapACD in one of the earlier posts on here... I can now say that I received several items successfully from these sites and can fully recommend them both. If anyone reading this decides to join, there's a "referred by:" field when you sign up for your account. Type in "obscure-reference" with a hyphen between the words, and I'll probably get some sort of credit for referring you! What you should know before you join any of these sites is that you need to post 10 books/CDs/DVDs (depending on which site you join) to get your first credit. Also, you have to pay for the shipping to mail any of the items on your shelf that other members request. When you request items, though, you don't have to pay shipping. Like anything else, you should read all the terms of use before you agree to sign up...