Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy" is a military account of the French Indochina War published and revised in the early 1960s. I've got a book collecting urge to buy it. Not a paperback added to a cart on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Borders, rather a signed, rare edition from an antiquarian bookseller. Here's why, and what's going on in my gently mad bibliophilic thinking.
Category: First Editions
My ADD book collecting habit
On the eve of moderating a panel about book collecting, a personal reality check in that area. Plus, my Faulkner first edition (in spanish).
Keep your books
There are way too many books coming into my life to keep all of them, but I wish I'd kept my copy of Stephen King's second novel, "Salem Lot". I sold it 20+ years ago, and now it's commanding a pretty nice price.
No monkey business here
Steve Jenkins children's book "Never Smile at a Monkey" tells you what you should never do if you encounter one of the surprisingly dangerous animals illustrated in his book. I went looking for it because of the book's cover deemed a favorite of 2009, and then found the content informative.
Content & design: “Too Much Happiness”
Alice Munro's recently released collection of short stories is predictably winning praise. But it's the design of her new book that's initially caught my attention.
Getting Louise Erdrich’s signature
I went to Kenyon College Saturday night with my 4 Louise Erdrich novels. Ms. Erdrich was the featured author at the Kenyon Review Literary Festival.
Finding “Kaputt”
"The New York Review of Books" Classics series publishes great novels of World War II. Here's one of them.
Will Google kill used bookstores?
The owner of a used bookstore thinks it will. Plus, three books I purchased.
A surprise arrives from Paris
Two paperback books found in a book stall near Notre Dame Cathedral arrive in my mailbox.
It was August 1978 when this letter arrived
I went through a short period in my young life when I wrote letters to authors. A few replied, including Meta Carpenter Wilde. She had written a memoir about her love affair with William Faulkner. Here's an excerpt from her letter.
I can’t resist vintage paperbacks
Check out the sexy temptress on the first edition paperback of Steinbeck's "To a God Unknown" and the deer-in-the-headlights face on Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and Damned." Intriguing illustrations such as these are why vintage paperbacks end up in my library.
How many books can you fit in a house?
Last summer I bought a new bookcase. This summer appears to require a new one also. The photo explains.
William Styron, the Marines & me
A collection of fictional Marine Corps stories by the late William Styron will be published in October. I collect Styron, and his first book about the Marines is when it all began.
Come on back to the typewriter
An impulsive mid-day trip to a bookstore on the other side of town connected me to unexpected treasures of Anne Sexton's poetry. Here's what I bought, and why I thought of Kathleen Norris's "Acedia & Me."
The answer’s in the carpet
"Of Human Bondage" is William Somerset Maugham's masterpiece and a classic coming-of-age story originally published in 1915. It follows protagonist Philip Carey, from childhood through young adult years, as an artist in Paris and a medical student in London. Along the way, he wrestles with the meaning of life.
The Longest Chapter 