I often haunt thrift shops to check out the books.
Welcome to the club! I'd say at least half my library at home involves thrift shop finds,
including a full set of the
Harvard Classics I received as a gift a few years ago. I also
found plenty of H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock and some choice writings about baseball
in the thrift shops, including a rare copy of Casey Stengel's autobiography, not to mention
a ton of books tied to my passion for old-time radio, including:
* Fred Allen's memoirs
Treadmill to Oblivion and
Much Ado About Me, and a
collection of his letters.
* Four anthologies by radio comedy legend Goodman Ace, from his post-radio years
writing for the
Saturday Evening Post:
The Book of Little Knowledge: More Than
You Want to Know About Television,
The Fine Art of Hypochondria,
The Better
of Goodman Ace, and
Ladies and Gentlemen---Easy Aces.
* Gerald Nachman's splendid history,
Raised on Radio.
* John Dunning's
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio.
*
Sunday Nights at Seven, the Jack Benny memoir his daughter, Joan, finished
for him after his death.
*
How Fibber McGee & Molly Won World War II, a great book reviewing their
war-themed episodes.
*
Vic & Sade, a posthumous collection of Paul Rhymer's scripts for that classic
quiet conversational comedy.
*
Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show, a collection
of all the scripts for that short lived classic.
