Oxfam Finds
In Cologne the we don't go to Salvation Army to buy junk, it's the Oxfam store. And my Oxfam store is a treasure trove, particularly the books.
Seems a lot of english speakers/readers in the area use it as a general book swap. That's what I do. I find great books, read them, then give them back just to keep them in circulation. Kind of like Netflix, only you don't get to choose what you read next, it's the luck of the draw. Today I found:
The Little Friend: Donna Tartt
Martin Amis: The Information
I buy about 90% of my reading material from Oxfam, and it's interesting because my taste is dictated by what's available. For instance, I probably never would have bought a copy of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, but finding it at Oxfam it's a risk-free read. And I actually enjoyed it. (Decent writing even if it's a simple cowboy romance.)
And more than once I've had a book in mind that I really want to read, and it just appears there. Spooky. This recently happened with Vernon God Little. The book gods read my mind.
There are also titles you can almost ALWAYS find, for instance The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, will always be there, in various cover printings and foreign editions. And some random Penguin Classic, today it was Vanity Fair, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens are also a popular finds.
Sometimes the books show up in themes, like someone's taken a class, or rather dropped out of a class, since the spines are usually uncracked and visibly unread. One time I found The Bookseller of Kabul, Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Inside the Kingdom--the "middle-east light" selection, I call it.
Other Oxfam Finds have included
- Burberry 100% camel hair coat (unfortunately 4 sizes too big for me.)
- Hugo Boss sport coat for Karsten (it fit)
- Italian silk scarf
- pewter pill case shaped like a tiny purse or portemonnaie
- coasters with martini recipes and pictures on them
I will keep you posted on new fabulous finds with a recurring Oxfam Finds post.