Cold Tonnage Books had a sale where all £10 books were £5, so I picked up a fair number. This post covers fiction titles.
Library Additions: Fiction Books Bought from Cold Tonnage’s £5 Sale
February 16th, 2016Library Addition: The Da Vinci Code
February 15th, 2016Only doing a separate blog post on this to illustrate a few points about bookselling and collecting.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. Doubleday, 2003. First edition hardback (price of $24.95 on flap, “First Edition” and “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1” numberline on copyright page), a near Fine copy with owner blindstamp on front free endpaper, in a Fine- dust jacket with a small crease to bottom corner of front flap.
The multi-million bestseller. At one point people were getting big bucks for first printings. This copy? I bought it for $2 from the “Nostalgia Bargain” section of a Half Price Books.
Sic transit gloria mundi…
Shoegazer Sunday: Rancho Relaxo’s “Stars”
February 14th, 2016For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s Norway’s Rancho Relaxo with “Stars.”
Phenomenal Remix of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”
February 12th, 2016Trent Reznor has been offering the individual tracks of his music for other people to remix for a while now. I stumbled across this truly awesome Andrej Prebanda remix of “Hurt” on YouTube:
Yeah, I like the Johnny Cash version as well.
More on David Hartwell
February 11th, 2016Now that the New York Times has finally bestirred itself to publish a David Hartwell obituary, it offers me a chance to throw up a few more Hartwell-related links from:
I would have had this up earlier, but I was distracted by shiny objects. But Dwight’s post jogged my memory…
Library Addition: Tobias Buckell’s Xenowealth
February 10th, 2016I finally got my copy of Toby Buckell’s Xenowealth collection, a Kickstarter project I first backed in November of 2014.
Buckell, Tobias S. Xenowealth. Self-published, 2016. First edition hardback, one of an unspecified number signed by the author, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Short story collection set in the same universe as Crystal Rain. There were only 63 backers of the hardback level, so it’s possible the total print run for this edition is under 100 copies. Due to an error, my name was not listed among the backs on the acknowledgements page, but Toby sent me an extra copy each of the hardback and the trade paperback to make up for it.
Library Addition: Two Gnome Press Anthologies
February 8th, 2016I picked up two nice Gnome Press anthologies from a National Book Auction at quite a reasonable price.
Shoegazer Sunday: Vidulgi OoyoO’s “Infinity”
February 7th, 2016Korean psychgazer band Vidulgi OoyoO’s “Infinity” is one of those songs that starts slow and keeps building on the same basic groove, a bit like Lemon’s Chair, though Vidulgi OoyoO has a harder and faster edge.
(Hat tip: Primal Music Blog.)
Random Thing That Amuses Me
February 4th, 2016The name of this top-ranked high school football recruit: Chauncey Gardner.
I’m just going to assume all my readers know why I find that name amusing. And how often do I get to use the “football” and “Peter Sellers” tags for the same post?
Library Addition: First Edition of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon
February 3rd, 2016I ignored a couple of my own collecting rules when picking this up, namely picking up a book from before my usual collecting period, and picking up a rebound copy. However, the book in question was important enough, and the price I paid cheap enough, that I don’t mind.
(Butler, Samuel). Erewhon or Over the Range. Trübner & Co., 1872. First edition hardback, a rebound copy in modern full leather (at least according to the auction description, but “modern” is a relative term; the new binding is worn enough that it appears to be at least 50 years old), original covers bound in rear of textblock, with heavy rubbing on joints and corners, hinges starting, minor scattered foxing on preliminary and terminal leaves, pages characteristically brittle, overall a Very Good rebind copy. Published anonymously, Erehwon (“nowhere” spelled backwards) is satire in the mode of Gullivers Travels, and one of the most important 19th century Utopian/Dystopian novels. Bleiler Checklist (1978), page 36. Bleiler Checklist (1948), page 68. Bleiler, SF: The Early Years, page 113. Reginald (Volume I), page 84. Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4, 1-19. Magill, Survey of Science Fiction Literature Volume Two, page 729. Bought for $75 (including buyer’s premium) from Heritage Auctions.
And here’s a picture of the original boards bound into the back:
Note that E. F. Bleiler in SF: The Early Years says there was a second, corrected state printed the same year as the first edition. I have been unable to find points that distinguish between the first and second state, and the original boards bound into my edition seems to match those first editions copies I’ve been able to locate online.
I believe this is now the oldest book in my library, replacing a first edition of Camille Flammarion’s Urania (1890). Next oldest would be my first editions of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow and H. G. Wells’ Select Conversations with An Uncle (Now Extinct), both 1895.