No sooner had I posted Friday's report on New Arrivals than my husband came into my study to propose a trip to M Is For Mystery, a specialty mystery bookstore on the San Francisco Bay Peninsula. He had it in mind to purchase a signed first edition of Reif Larsen's The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, about which he "has a feeling." By this he usually means that, not only will he enjoy the book, but it will increase in value. Why does that matter to us, when we will never sell any of our books? Good question, but we do love our signed firsts. This book, of which I had read descriptions that made it sound too precious, looks wonderful when actually in hand. It's about a 12-year-old cartographer who travels from Montana to Washington, D.C., on his own, and is filled with drawings from his travels. It is a lovely book to hold and page through, and a good argument, standing all by itself, against ereaders of any sort.

And M Is For Mystery is definitely a place to find signed first editions. Oodles of them adorn one long table and about four bookcases in the front of the store. As always, I had to restrain myself from picking up one of each and bankrupting us. But I did manage to find three signed books I really wanted, including Michael Connelly's newest book, The Scarecrow; we have quite a collection of signed Connellys, since he usually makes M Is For Mystery one of his stops. The Andrew Taylor is the middle book of a trilogy that I'd missed last time I stopped by the store, and isn't signed, but now I can get started reading all three. And I reserved a copy of Gone Tomorrow; Lee Child will drop by to sign on June 6.

I had to restrain myself from picking up an unsigned copy of China Mieville's new book, The City & The City. Instead, I came home and used a 10% off coupon I had from ABE Books, a great online source for used books and new signed books. I found this one at Dan Pope Books, an online-only source that we've used many times to find pristine signed contemporary first editions.

So: I guess I haven't been so good about watching the wallet on book purchases just lately after all. But you know what? I'm way happy.