Paperback $19 - Magazine $21

I spent $100+ on Monday in the wonderful Unity Books Auckland, little cousin of the bigger Wellington outfit, and came away well pleased with my purchases:

Dirty South by Ace Atkins - Avon paperback $19
A Novel Bookstore - Laurence Cosse - Europa Editions - $31
The Princilpes of Uncertainty - Maira Kalman - Penguin US - $37
Vanity Fair - November airfreight issue - $21

At the time it occurred to me that it seemed wrong to pay more for Vanity Fair than the Avon paperback. Since then however I have read the Vanity Fair on and off all week and I must say there is some fabulous reading within those 184 pages including a good deal of book-related material and of course I guess that $3-$4 of the price of the magazine is the payment for getting it by air.
Some of the interesting stuff includes:

*Marilyn & her monsters - a long-hidden cache of MM's private letters and diaries now published as Fragments. Includes revelations about her life, loves and shocking death which I can still recall even though I was still young and single.

*Reviving Cleopatra - VF writers spotlight biographer Stacy Schiff who has tackled the myth of Cleopatra

*Palace Coup - Looking at Sir Kenneth Scott who has written a history of St.James Palace

*Christopher Hitchens and his battle with cancer - Tumourtown. Love him or hate him this man can really write.

*The Prince & the Planet - Prince Charles  talking about his  new book, Harmony: A new way of looking at our world (Harper Collins)

*Comics Between Covers

As publishing struggles, the memoirs of stand-up comedians


Heaps more too.Oh I almost forgot the Hockney art done on his i-Pad. Amazing.
 A great magazine, my favourite monthly, the New Yorker is my favouite weekly, followed closely by the NZ Listener.