I had a meeting downtown yesterday morning, and on the way back to the subway I just so happened to pass by my favourite ever bookstore. And since I had ten dollars in my purse, and am a huge sucker for used books, I decided to stop and see what I could get.

Here’s the haul:

• Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy ($1.00)
• Amnesia, by Douglas Cooper ($1.00)
• The Wars, by Timothy Findley ($1.00)
• Wacousta, by John Richardson ($0.50)
• Lives of Girls and Women, by Alice Munro ($2.00)
• The Fire-Dwellers, by Margaret Laurence ($1.00)
• The Road Past Altamont, by Gabrielle Roy ($1.00)

Total outlay, including tax: $7.88. For seven books! Stores like this are the best.

The Hardy book I bought merely on the strength of having loved Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The rest, you may note, are all Candian Fiction. I took a CanFic class last year, and while I didn’t like the prof or the lectures or really anything about the class itself, I did discover/renew a definite love for Candidan books and authors. We’ve got some good writers up here, Skippy!

I’m especially interested in Wacousta, not least because it is about a million years old (first pub: 1832) and is, as the cover says, “An important landmark in the development of Canadian historical fiction”. But I’m also interested it in because, back in first year, I took a course — I don’t remember what it was — where the prof didn’t have us read Wacousta, but gave us a plot summary thereof, and then tried to talk about why the book was so excellent, historical fiction, woah woah woah et cetera. And we were completely confused. Note to aspiring literature profs: teach off of plot summaries doesn’t really work. So now I own Wacousta, and finally have a chance at figuring out what on earth he was talking about. Hooray!

Well, actually, when you get down to it I want to read all of them. Though I might have to completely revamp my list for the 2nd Canadian Book Challenge.