Thursday, June 10, 2010

Daedalus Books catalogue arrives!!!!


Daedalus Books -- Books, Music, and DVDs
1-800-395-2665
P.O. Box 6000
Columbia, MD 21045
$5.95 postage/handling
6% sales tax -- Maryland shipments only.
Subject index: children's/ compact discs / cooking & healing / crafts / dvds / fiction / gardening / highlights / history / humor / literature & poetry / mysteries / nature & pets / notecards & postcards / performing arts / science / self & society / spirituality / sports / travel / visual arts
Daedalus is one of my favorite sources for remaindered books.......great quality books, great selection, great prices.
Here are some of the titles, from their Early Summer 2010 catalogue, that stand out.....
The A-Z of Modern Design (pap), (Polster, et al.) $9.98
Watchman (pap), (Rankin) $3.98
The Plague of Doves, (Erdrich) $5.98
Diary of a Bad Year, (Coetzee) $5.98
The Memory of Running, (McLarty) $3.98
The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, (Hall) $4.98
The Painted Bed: Poems, (Hall) $3.98
Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker, (Mariner) (pap) $4.98
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, (McWhorter) $6.98
T.S. Eliot, (Raine) $4.98
Thumbs, Toes, and Tears: And Other Traits That Make Us Human, (Walker) $4.98
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question...Why We Suffer, (Ehrman) $6.98
NPR Sound Treks: Birds (1 hour Audio CD), (Hamilton) $9.95
Complete Poems, (Dorothy Parker) $10.95
The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters, (Susanka) $5.98
The Departed, DVD (DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson) Full Screen, 2 hrs., 31 min., $6.98
The Painted Veil, DVD (Watts, Norton Schreiber) Letterbox, 2 hrs., 5 min., $7.98
Persuasion, DVD (Root, Hinds) Widescreen, 1 hr., 44 min., $6.98
John Coltrane: The Bethlehem Years, 2 CDs, (Byrd, Green Jones), $7.98
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons for Harp and Orchestra, CD, $5.98
New York State: Gateway to America, An Illustrated History (Ellis & Cash), $6.98
Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore, (Hughes) $6.98
The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008 (Keller, ed.) $29.98
The War Diaries: An Anthology of Daily Wartime Diary Entries (Taylor) $4.98
D.H. Lawrence's Paintings (Lawrence & Sagar) $14.98
Making it New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy (Rothschild) $9.98
Edouard Vuillard (10 notecards) $3.98
Charles Addams: A Book of 30 Postcards $2.98
Classic Baseball: The Photographs of Walter Iooss, Jr. $12.98
French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew (Mayle) $5.98
When Randolph Turned Rotten (Harper) $3.98
The Writer in the Garden: A Literary Anthology of Garden Writing (5 CDs) $9.98

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

The Vermont Country Store





One of my favorite catalogues--for The Vermont Country Store-- arrived in the mail today. The nostalgia rises thick from it, much as the scent of floor wax in a school auditorium (which never fails to make me feel six again!).


While, to some degree, the products are priced on the high side, it has been my experience that, with VCS you get what you pay for. A case in point is their wooden drying racks--currently available in the 24 inch and 27 inch sizes, for $39.95 and $59.95, but, curiously, not the 50 inch size I purchased a number of years ago (and have found most useful).


Their selection of jams, spreads, jellies, marmalades, pickles, relishes, and chutney are worth persusing, as well as other hard to find provisions such as scrapple and maple butter. VCS is also a great source for maple syrup and cheddar cheese (delicious!). There is an ample selection of candies: chocolates, mints, licorice, jellied candies, and caramels.


Their basic kitchen appliances--the 10 cup stainless steel teakettle with a bakelite handle, for instance--may, at $54.95, seem expensive at first sight, but will give years of service and far surpass fancier models.


Home furnishings are plain, practical, and designed to provide years of use. What they lack in novelty and flash they more than make up for in dependability. They carry a "dry iron" (often hard to find, as most irons, these days, seem to be "steam" irons) which is preferred by quilters and crafters, for $29.95. There is a nice selection of bedding, in pretty pastels and florals, as well as a choice of eight different types of pillow (to meet different needs) and mattress pads made of foam, Australian wool fleece, cotton, or microfiber.


The women's (and men's) clothing tends towards the widely cut and comfortable, in modest and classic styles. Accessories include women's hats and small leather goods, as well as Dr. Scholl's original exercise sandal in bone, red, white, navy, and black, for $49.95. A full selection of women's and men's foundation garments and nightwear (long on practicality and comfort) are featured, as well as a wide range of health and beauty aids--everything from cod liver oil and liquid iron supplements to lavender scented soaps and hard to find colognes (including one of my favorites, "White Shoulders").


Their customer service, in my experience, has been exemplary, unfailingly polite and helpful--a refreshing change from many mail order companies.


The Vermont Country Store

Purveyors of the Practical and Hard to Find

Mail Order Office

P.O. Box 6998

Rutland, VT 05702-6998


Order online 24 hours a day or call them at: 1-802-362-0285