Do you have permission to waltz?

When my dear husband says "I don't know what to buy you!" I always try to keep it easy for him. I tell him he can buy me expensive jewelry or book gift certificates. And can there be anything more tempting than a book sale for a good cause? Where you're spending money on something you want anyway, probably more money than you should, because you know a percentage goes to charity? It almost takes the guilt out of guilty pleasures.

Goerings Books in Gainesville, Florida, is an independent bookstore that not only has the good taste to carry signed copies of Darlene Marshall's books, but also donates a percentage of proceeds to charity through most of November and December. You buy during certain weeks depending on who you wish to be the recipient--Women's Studies at UF, various children's programs, etc.

So when Goerings was hosting one of these events yesterday, with wine to help lubricate sales, I ended up walking out with a slew of books. Two of them are new research volumes: Frolicking Bears, Wet Vultures, and Other Oddities--A New York City Journalist in Nineteenth-Century Florida by Jerald T. Milanich. The second book is Trade and Privateering in Spanish Florida, 1732-1763 by Joyce Elizabeth Harman.

I can hardly wait to dig into these. And I feel no guilt at all. And barely any for also putting Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss in the shopping cart.