03.21.07 - Bryn-Mawr / Wellesley Book Sale

I bought the following items today from a used book sale. All the proceeds go to Bryn-Mawr and Wellesley. The prices in ( ) are approximate market value of the books on Amazon. The prices in [ ] are what I paid.

Please note the “CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics” book. As some know, this is ~1950 pages of raw insanity. Some advice: if you go to someone’s house and you see this on their shelf, run immediately. The woman at the check-out counter read the title and jokingly said, “Wow, people really don’t know the meaning of ‘concise’.” To that I quipped, “Or the breadth of mathematics.” ZING!

I was very pleased to come across “Counterpoint“, which has been on my list for ages. I also saw a first edition of Hofstadter’s, “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid“. I was going to buy it just out of respect, but then came to my senses as an old man snatched in front of me.

Today I learned the median age at used book sales is approximately 100 years old. Thus, younger folk have distinct advantages: they can swiftly navigate through people/aisles and can lift/carry a far greater number of books per unit of time (in theory – however, those guys at the math table provide ripe counterexamples, DOUBLE ZING!). I’ll have to cool my jets while you browse the reading list:

Math:

Language, Proof and Logic, by Jon Barwise, John Etchemendy. (56) [2]

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by Charles Seife. (16) [2]

Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of Mathematics, by Beverly Henderson West, et al. (5) [4]

CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics, First Edition, by Eric W. Weisstein. (2nd ed: $132) [20]

Music:

Counterpoint, by Walter Piston. (43) [5]

Economics:

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John Maynard Keynes, First Ed., 1964. (~10) [2]

The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, The Library of Liberal Arts, with intro from Bruce Mazlish. (~10) [1]

Art:

Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z (Guggenheim Museum Publications), by Nancy Spector. (5) [8]

A Short Guide to Writing About Art (The Short Guide Series), by Sylvan Barnet. (38) [5]

Movements in Art Since 1945, by Edward Lucie-Smith. (12) [9]

Primer of Visual Literacy
, by Donis A. Dondis. (20) [2]

American Art of the 20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, by Sam Hunter, John M. Jacobus. (2) [6]

Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, by Sam Hunter, John Jacobus, 1976 Ed. (3rd Ed, 34) [12]

History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, by H. H. Arnason. (5th Ed 69) [3]

Architecture:

American Architecture and Urbanism, by Vincent Joseph Scully. (6) [5]