It has eluded me for some time

Every trip I made up to Bloor for the last year and half has ended the same.

Paperback, paperback, paperback, fucking paperback!

I have come across some great finds at the BMV and The Shitty Dusty Bookstore That Smells Like Incense.

Head obscenities were yelled (at the fact I could not find the elusive book).

That was until I went walking down Bathurst to find this Balfour bookstore.

I wanted to find a book on how Steinbeck found the valley. I had given up all hope of finding a old vintage copy of Ulysses by James Joyce. I made a quick glimpse in the section nothing. I thought wow this bookstore blows. Then I went looking for John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath in hardcover form. Given up and resigned to the fact that my trip was pointless, I proceeded to head for home.

Until just above where I was looking for the Grapes of Wrath, was a copy of Ulysses from 1961 in phenomenal condition in its own section. I snatched the copy, the clerk gave me a fifteen dollar price, which I didn't really care about, as this book has eluded me for sometime.

We made small, chat I mentioned my love of hardcovers.

I was on my way. I may not have found the valley, something better instead.