Judging books by their covers

One of my favorite stores of all times is Half-Price Books. Sometimes I actually can walk out of the store with more money than I had when I entered, but that’s rare. (HPB will buy back your used books, but it’s all a ploy I believe. How can you not turn around and spend the money then and there?) The HPB near my house just moved across the street into a much bigger, nicer storefront. I went with some friends Friday night to browse. I only picked up four books to take home – a copy of “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett (per a friend’s suggestion and my love of the movie), a Dora the Explorer book with a hand puppet (for my niece), a trashy French pulp novel (I always look for chances to practice and improve my poor French) and a copy of Vickie Howell’s “New Knits on the Block” (because it has a pattern for a knitted robot AND a knitted guitar).

Half-Price Books can be hit or miss. They typically do well on popular titles, but specialty books are slim pickings. The knitting section here is larger than the HPB I used to frequent, but the selection isn’t better. Books that end up at HPB are often ones that wouldn’t sell elsewhere – or ones that people liked so little they turned the volumes in for pocket change.

I thought the Vickie Howell book was a real find. Amazon’s selling  it for $11; but HPB’s original price was $6, then marked down to $3. I was less pleased with the other knitting books, however. There were a few I would consider (plus one Debbie Bliss book I already had), but most of the choices were obviously remainders that have no business in anyone’s library unless it’s a historical archive collection. Sometimes you CAN tell a book by it’s cover. So for your amusement, I give you the following:

“Rainbow Knits for Kids”: The poor, poor children.  There should be a legal age limit on variegated ribbon yarns for children’s garments.

“Design and Knit the Sweater of Your Dreams”:  Based on the cover photo, the author’s dream is for all of her clothing to be double her size. Yikes!

“Knitting With Novelty Yarns”: I’m not 100% against novelty yarn; it has its place. This cover explains why so many people do hate it, though.

“Chic Knits”:  There’s nothing chic about this! A furry sweater with a furry scarf? That’s why there’s an unwritten rule that you should only wear one handknit item at a time. You can get away with sets, but don’t overdo it on the yarn.

I saved this one for last, because there may be some controversy. I have to qualify this in that I love some of Kaffe Fassett’s designs, and he certainly has a unique style. This book, however, is certainly showing its age.