No more of this book sale, I promise myself, frequently, but return in anticipation of new discoveries. At 50 per cent off the sticker price, many of these books are very cheap indeed. One, a 1500-page anthology of Romantic writings, was a steal at $15. Edited by Duncan Wu, it has been a text book used at Sydney Uni.

Among the others are a novel by Kate Grenville, a history of the microchip in the form of literary journalism, two books on media relations, a novel by Richard Powers, one by Kingsley Amis, and Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days.

More serious perhaps, but definitely to my taste, are such as the pictured book, which is a study of portraiture from 1780 to 1830. I am extremely partial to books about the Early Romantic period. Jane Austen was alive for most of this span, for starters, so each new work supplies reference material for a more critical reading of her wonderful novels.

There's also a study of literature, ancient to modern, by Harold Bloom: Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?. Also an anthology of Katherine Mansfield's writings. This New Zealand author is known to me, but only as a name. Finally there's a collection of essays about Early Modern and Modern intellectual history. Yum.