So as is now seemingly becoming my annual tradition, I went to the Decatur Book Festival. It’s an outdoor festival that takes place in downtown Decatur right on top of the Decatur MARTA station. (MARTA is Georgia’s/Atlanta’s transit system – bus and train.) There are local authors as well as some famous authors that come to the festival. There are book readings, discussions, selling and signing. Since I sunburn very easily I get there early on Saturday just to do book shopping. This is my time to check out anything new and take a chance with a new author or a self-published author. I also check out the used book sellers. At this point, there is one used book seller tent I have come to love above the others because I have the best luck in finding something I want. So here’s this year’s stash.
There was one vendor selling some socks, totes, large zipper pouches, and some books. Here are some of their socks and one tote I just had to get.
I actually have a zipper pouch of “This is how we roll” via my Uppercase box subscription from a few months back. At the time it was an exclusive from Out of Print. Now Out of Print sells them on their site, but the pouches I got from Uppercase are in purple. This bag is in a nice deep blue. (I believe the pouches from Out of Print sell are in the same blue color as well, so at least the purple color background was unique to Uppercase.)
Next on my list of purchases was some new mystery books. Mystery is a genre I haven’t really gotten into as a reader. I know there are the usual authors, but it’s difficult to me to tell if I would like their books. Are they’re good, or it’s more of a popularity thing? Even then I would want to know which book or books are the best from that author. So I stopped by a tent I visited last year full of mystery authors. After asking what their books were about, I ended up picking up these three books.
I also put my name, email, and cell number into a drawing for door prizes. My name was actually picked, which is surprising since I usually don’t win these kinds of drawings. I had just left the festival to grab some lunch with my husband. So after lunch, I bought another trip on the MARTA rail to see what I won.
I had a choice of prizes. One was a bag of kids stuff, mystery themed of course. I don’t have kids so that was out. Another was a puzzle with a black Egyptian looking cat. I don’t do puzzles and my cats would eat the pieces so I passed. Another choice was a small bag with a handle. It could maybe fit a hardcover, but the strap wasn’t very long. It looked handmade, but I passed on that. The last choice was two books. At first I thought that meant I would get both of them, and hey new mystery books. But no, I had to choose between the two books. So I chose this one shown below. Not exactly a free book as I had to pay for an additional MARTA trip pass, but it was fun to see the author’s reaction when she heard I chose her book. So it was worth it.
There’s another tent with a lot of local author’s works sitting on tables with signs indicating the genre for that area. I like to browse these and find something new to take a chance on. More often than not they are self-published works. But hey part of the fun is exploring so why not right? Here’s what I got from that tent.
Finally, the used book seller tent I love. I managed to get two books that were on my wishlist. The middle book in the picture, “Stiff”, has taken some damage to the cover. (Bent.) Sadly I didn’t find any additional copies in their tent or their boxes nearby. Granted I only dug so far through their huge cardboard boxes of used books since I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on it. But the cost of the used book was cheaper than the ebook version, so I took it anyway. The book on the left just sounded like a nice plot, so I picked it up.
So yeah that’s everything I picked up this year. Some nice books, more mystery books to check out, and some comfy socks. Even though I tired myself out walking around, it was still a fun experience.