I said I wasn’t going to do it again.

But once again, I purchased another stash of used books, this time at an estate sale in our neighborhood in Bloomington, Minn.

I wish I had known the folks who owned this house. It was full of books on every conceivable subject, from great works of literature to volumes about home repair and cooking. I coughed up 10 bucks for a dozen of them. Most I’ll save for winter reading, when I have an aversion to being outdoors in the cold.

But two of the finds are on my night stand already.

• “My Irish Cook Book” by Monica Sheridan. (I fell in love with that cuisine during our visit to that country last year.)
• “Giants In the Earth” by O.E. Rolvaag, a novel first published in Norwegian and then in 1927 in English. It’s set in 1873 in what would become the state of South Dakota. Rolvaag attended Augustana College in that state and later St. Olaf College in Minnesota, where he eventually became a professor.My interest in Norwegian heritage has intensified as I’ve aged. My sister, Susan Vorland Hanson, is currently visiting Norway, and I’m eager to see her pictures and hear her stories. Perhaps I’ll get there myself one of these days.