21. The Best British Mysteries 2005, ed. Maxim Jakubowski. Mysteries, 3-4, pp. 341Best is an arguable description for this collection of short stories. Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and a smattering of other authors are definitely worth perusing, but it's an uneven assortment at best.
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Attended the annual Washington Antiquarian Book Fair yesterday. I'm not at all certain why I parted with $12 to do so. I bought two books, both from the same dealer. Generally, the books on offer are extremely over-priced. Book fairs do tend to attract dealers who are quite proud of their inventory. In fairness, book fairs are costly ventures for dealers--there's the cost of travel and subsistence as well as the registration fee. I do wonder if they serve much of a purpose. I enjoy looking (but not buying) all the rare and expensive books on offer. Such pleasure is increasingly offset by the $12 opening day fee and the difficulty of getting to the Washington Book Fair which is, strictly speaking, in Arlington, Virginia.---
Borders annoys me. They persist in shelving Joan Didion's fine memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, among the fiction. I have found other memoirs there, also. This is most annoying. Why don't the powers-that-be at Borders establish a section for biographies, autobiographies and memoirs? In this, they could learn from their counterparts at Barnes & Noble.
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