It seems that every six years or so I put up a song from semi-obscure Japanese Shoegaze/Post-Rock band Speaker Gain Teardrop, so here’s Metaphorville.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Speaker Gain Teardrop’s “Metaphorville”
April 27th, 2025Library Addition: Lachman’s A Reader’s Guide to The American Novel of Detection
April 25th, 2025Another pickup for my extended library of bibliographic reference works.
Lachman, Marvin. A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection. G. K. Hall & Co., 1993. First edition hardback, an Ex-Library copy with most of the usual flaws (though UT Law Library rather than APL, so it doesn’t have the hideous APL band glued to the dust jacket), otherwise it would be a Fine/Fine copy. Provides plot synopsis for American detective novels, along with a few different index sections (pseudonyms, series characters, settings, etc.). There are no entries for Joe R. Lansdale, Kinky Friedman, or even Dashiell Hammett, so I wonder what the criteria was for an entry here. Bought for the munificent sum of $1 at UT’s ReUse shop.
All the dirt on the scan is just wear on the dust jacket protector.
Library Additions: Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard I-III
April 21st, 2025This was another purchase from that Facebook estate seller I bought the Howard chapbooks from.
With:
With:
All bought for $60 for the set, which I think is a great bargain, as the majority of the REH Press stuff, especially early books like these, are all long out of print and hard to find.
Library Addition: Signed PBO of William Tenn’s The Square Root of Man
April 17th, 2025That same eBay seller keeps having some interesting signed PBOs going cheap, including this one:
Tenn, William. The Square Root of Man. Ballantine Books, 1968. First edition paperback original (“First Printing: June, 1968”), a Very Good copy with spine creasing and lean, crease along front spine join, edgewear, and a bookstore stamp to teaser page, signed by Tenn. Currey, page 278. Bought for the opening bid of $10.
Library Additions: Four (Mostly) Robert E. Howard Chapbooks
April 16th, 2025Someone on Facebook was selling off the collection of an Arkham House/Weird Tales collector, and he had some Robert E. Howard chapbooks I pulled the trigger on.
All the above bought for $80.
Library Additions: Two Signed Firsts (Hill, Eggers)
April 14th, 2025Two more Half Price Books finds, both signed.
Library Addition: Ian McDonald’s Hopeland
April 9th, 2025Another Half Price Books find:
McDonald, Ian. Hopeland. Tor, 2023. First edition hardback, a Fine-/Fine- copy with slight bumping to top points. Looks a bit New Weird-ish. ISDFB says the Tor edition precedes by a couple of days. Bought from Half Price Books for $13.49.
Library Addition: Michael Swanwick’s A Fantasist’s Guide to Venice
March 26th, 2025Another Dragonstairs chapbook:
Swanwick, Michael. A Fantasist’s Guide to Venice. Dragonstairs Press, 2025. First edition chapbook original, #30 of 79 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy. Collection of short essays on various fantastic elements of Venice, in fact and fiction, following the author’s visit there.
Note that this is one of at least four different cover patterns for this title, all done in reds and yellows.
I will have a small number of copies of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, which should be out in May.
Game Library Addition: Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme
March 24th, 2025I did a fair amount of wargaming in my youth, but have done piratically none since graduating college. Still, every now and then a boardgaming Kickstarter strikes my fancy, as this one, vaguely based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail and first announced back in 2022, did. I think this is the first game I’ve bought since the designer edition of Ogre.
Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme. Exalted Funeral, 2025. This has numerous components:
All components are Fine/New, still in shrinkwrap or bag.
Bought for $250 back in 2022, but only shipped this year.
Library Addition: WingNuts in Time and Space
March 21st, 2025Quite a bit different than a lot of the items I catalog here:
Harvia, Teddy (David Thayer). WingNuts in Time and Space. Self-published, 2025. First edition comic book fanzine original, #90 of 200 copies, a Fine copy, with letter from the author/illustrator laid in. An eight page comic from the award-winning fan artist featuring his WingNut characters talking about the Big Bang. Given to me free after he asked me if I wanted a copy. Sure!
