, I felt the urge to get new copies of his first two novels, Days Between Stations
and Rubicon Beach
. (Though, thinking about it another week later, the Erickson books I really should be reading this summer are Leap Year
and American Nomad
, his two "non-fiction" books about presidential election years and the craziness of America.)So I fired up the ol' Amazon, found used copies of the editions I used to have -- Vintage Contemporaries in both cases -- and added them to my cart. Since that wasn't enough for free shipping, I had to dig a bit more...
First, Amazon randomly turned up You Must Go and Win
, a memoir from the singer-songwriter Alina Simone, which is really weird, since I've been listening to her 2011 album Make Your Own Danger
, so the name was weirdly familiar but entirely out of context. At the time, You Must Go was ridiculously cheap -- and it looks to be actually well-written and interesting, not just "literate for a musician" -- so go check it out if you're interested in the story of a young Ukranian woman trying to make a music career in Brooklyn.
I also pulled Leonard Kinsey's The Dark Side of Disney
out of my wish list, since it's been recommended to me by Amazon's bots a few dozen times by now. It's probably not as shocking as it claims to be, but it's a guide to that big tourist complex in Orlando from a very different POV, so it looked worth checking out. (And extensive searching has not turned up a single library I can connect to that has it available.)
And last was something that isn't a book -- Kate Miller-Heidke's new CD Nightflight
. I hardly ever buy music except as used CDs -- they're cheaper and act as their own backup once I rip them -- but this was pseudo-new (still in shrinkwrap, but called "used" for some obscure Amazon reason). And, because I am a good and loving person, here are several Kate Miller-Heidke songs in a widget, to demonstrate why I wanted her record quickly:
