Book collecting

[Weird Paper]

Books... now we're talkin'...

I'm an obsessive collector of books, with over 4000 in the house. Mostly modern firsts, but as far back as a 195-year-old book about Napoleon.

The highlights:

Signed books by

Bradbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Vonnegut

Groucho Marx

Harpo Marx

Carl Sandburg

Mickey Mantle

Dali (with a doodle)

Chabon

Richard Russo

PJ Farmer

Rube Goldberg

Cormac McCarthy

Roth

Edward Gorey

Hornby

Moorcock

Barry Gifford

And extensive collections of

Ralph Steadman (almost 300 pieces)

Donald Barthelme (US and British editions)

John Irving (including the dedication copy of Water Method Man)

TC Boyle

Kinky Friedman

Mark Helprin

Peter Carey (US, British and Australian editions)

Carl Hiassen

Thomas McGuane

Mark Leyner

Jonathan Lethem

Steve Aylett

Old cartoon books, pop-up books and weird books.

 

 

[Silver Surfer]

4,000!

[Moondog]

Over the past few weeks, I have become more and more interested in book collecting, specifically modern signed 1st editions. Does anyone on here actively collect books? It seems like a logical corollary to comic collecting, so I figured a post on here would not be out of line. Specifically, I am looking for information on message boards similar to this one or good starter reference materials. Thanks!

 

I'll show you some cool stuff the next time you come over, Andy.

[HouseofComics.Com]

(One of my staff found Michael Chabon's email address a few years ago -- this was well after Kavalier & Clay won the Pulitzer -- and sent him an email. To his surprise, Chabon wrote back about half an hour later.)

 

Chabon's email address was printed in Wonder Boys back in the day. I think it was an aol address, so maybe not still current. I thought that was interesting. I went to a lot of readings in Berkeley back then at Cody's and Black Oak Books and talked to a lot of authors.

 

Jonathan Lethem was a local guy and just coming up back then. I went to a reading set to music that he did, a collaboration with John Schott.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Wish I could collect:

 

first edition Hemingways (particularly Men Without Women, In Our Time, To Have and Have Not, and The Old Man and the Sea)

 

Funny enough, the only good book I have is a 1st of Men Without Women. Hemingway was a big influence on me and I actually got to visit his cottage (from In Our Time) and spend some time with his sister Sunny talking about his younger years.

 

By the way, be careful about buying 1st editions of For Whom the Bell Tolls. I believe the deal with that book is that later dust jackets are the same as the 1st so there are lots of "married" copies around.

[cloudofwit]

(One of my staff found Michael Chabon's email address a few years ago -- this was well after Kavalier & Clay won the Pulitzer -- and sent him an email. To his surprise, Chabon wrote back about half an hour later.)

 

Chabon's email address was printed in Wonder Boys back in the day. I think it was an aol address, so maybe not still current. I thought that was interesting. I went to a lot of readings in Berkeley back then at Cody's and Black Oak Books and talked to a lot of authors.

 

Jonathan Lethem was a local guy and just coming up back then. I went to a reading set to music that he did, a collaboration with John Schott.

 

I saw the movie adaptation to Chabon's "Wonder Boys" and absolutely loved it. If this is a case of "The book is way better than the movie" then I'm way overdue in gettiing and reading the book. How was the book?

[Ijiwaru Sensei]

I have a small collection of first editions by Southern writers.

 

I have all of William Styron's works in first editions, most of them signed. I met Styron at a reading back in 1992 and was able to get a number of his books signed--Sophie's Choise, The Confessions of Nat Turner, The Long March.

 

I have some other first editions, but not signed--Eudora Welty, William Faulkner.

[MyNameIsLegion]

4,000!

 

3,999. I borrowed one about 6 months ago.......

[drewincanada]

Books... now we're talkin'...

I'm an obsessive collector of books, with over 4000 in the house. Mostly modern firsts, but as far back as a 195-year-old book about Napoleon.

The highlights:

Signed books by

Bradbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Vonnegut

Groucho Marx

Harpo Marx

Carl Sandburg

Mickey Mantle

Dali (with a doodle)

Chabon

Richard Russo

PJ Farmer

Rube Goldberg

Cormac McCarthy

Roth

Edward Gorey

Hornby

Moorcock

Barry Gifford

And extensive collections of

Ralph Steadman (almost 300 pieces)

Donald Barthelme (US and British editions)

John Irving (including the dedication copy of Water Method Man)

TC Boyle

Kinky Friedman

Mark Helprin

Peter Carey (US, British and Australian editions)

Carl Hiassen

Thomas McGuane

Mark Leyner

Jonathan Lethem

Steve Aylett

Old cartoon books, pop-up books and weird books.

 

 

I like your taste!

 

I love buying odd/esoteric old books that I stumble across at used book/paper shows. More than the first editions, these are the ones I usually haul out to show people, and the reaction is usually perplexed bemusement... or straight-up disinterest.

 

One of my favourites is a hard cover from the 1930s called "Street Gangs of Toronto". It includes a fold out map of Toronto with black dots to indicate where the gangs hang out.

 

But my all-time fave was actually written and self-published by my grandfather. It's called "As You Become a Man", and it's a series of perforated pages that you are supposed to tear out and give to your son. They are supposed to explain the facts of life, but anyone reading them would be more likely to avoid coming within 50 feet of a woman for the rest of their life. It's a jaw-dropper. Do a search on abebooks for the author "Arntfield". You'll find it. As the description there says, it teaches a "god-fearing view of sex". God and woman-fearing.

[Theagenes]

I've dabbled in book collecting off and on over the years and have picked a few cool firsts. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Burroughs (both of them), a couple of Jane Austin posthumous firsts that I got for my wife, lots of moderns like Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy. I have a couple of books from the 16th and early 17th centuries - a copy of the letters of Cicero and one of the works of the theologian/philosopher Justus Lipsius with some beautiful woodcut illustrations.

 

Right now I'm working on Robert E. Howard - have two of the three Arkham Houses and two of the seven Gnomes (just posted one I got for Christmas in the Conan thread). I just won the last of the Wandering Star editions that I needed on ebay - The Ultimate Triumph signed by Frazetta. Down the road I'd like to work on the HPL and CAS Arkhams and the ERB McClurgs.

[Reno McCoy]

I can't believe I forgot to mention my Green Bay Packers book collection. I have roughly 30 first edition books about the Packers, both modern and from the glory years. None are signed, unfortunately, but very cool nonetheless.

 

 

 

How do most of you balance book collecting with comic collecting? Hell, how do you balance book reading with comic reading. I've got so many damn books to read, I could go years without buying anything else and still not catch up.

 

 

[cloudofwit]

Books... now we're talkin'...

I'm an obsessive collector of books, with over 4000 in the house. Mostly modern firsts, but as far back as a 195-year-old book about Napoleon.

The highlights:

Signed books by

Bradbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Vonnegut

Groucho Marx

Harpo Marx

Carl Sandburg

Mickey Mantle

Dali (with a doodle)

Chabon

Richard Russo

PJ Farmer

Rube Goldberg

Cormac McCarthy

Roth

Edward Gorey

Hornby

Moorcock

Barry Gifford

And extensive collections of

Ralph Steadman (almost 300 pieces)

Donald Barthelme (US and British editions)

John Irving (including the dedication copy of Water Method Man)

TC Boyle

Kinky Friedman

Mark Helprin

Peter Carey (US, British and Australian editions)

Carl Hiassen

Thomas McGuane

Mark Leyner

Jonathan Lethem

Steve Aylett

Old cartoon books, pop-up books and weird books.

 

 

I like your taste!

 

I love buying odd/esoteric old books that I stumble across at used book/paper shows. More than the first editions, these are the ones I usually haul out to show people, and the reaction is usually perplexed bemusement... or straight-up disinterest.

 

One of my favourites is a hard cover from the 1930s called "Street Gangs of Toronto". It includes a fold out map of Toronto with black dots to indicate where the gangs hang out.

 

But my all-time fave was actually written and self-published by my grandfather. It's called "As You Become a Man", and it's a series of perforated pages that you are supposed to tear out and give to your son. They are supposed to explain the facts of life, but anyone reading them would be more likely to avoid coming within 50 feet of a woman for the rest of their life. It's a jaw-dropper. Do a search on abebooks for the author "Arntfield". You'll find it. As the description there says, it teaches a "god-fearing view of sex". God and woman-fearing.

 

My understanding is that "fearing" in the original Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic (or whatever it was in biblical times) didn't mean fearing like we think of it in English; instead, it was a sense of seriously revering or honoring something. An example of this common misconception is the bumper sticker I saw that went something along the lines of "Marines don't fear anyone except God."

 

I haven't read your grandfather's work, but it sounds like you're saying it was in the scary territory.

[VintageComics]

 

My understanding is that "fearing" in the original Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic (or whatever it was in biblical times) didn't mean fearing like we think of it in English; instead, it was a sense of seriously revering or honoring something. An example of this common misconception is the bumper sticker I saw that went something along the lines of "Marines don't fear anyone except God."

 

I haven't read your grandfather's work, but it sounds like you're saying it was in the scary territory.

 

There are literally 1000's of words that are lost in translation between the original Greek/Aramaic and Hebrew letters when they were translated through Latin and into English. This happens when people are more intent on interpreting for you than they are translating from one language to another, meaning they create the meaning for you.

 

Many religious "translators" were forced under pain of death or something similar to translate religious works in a way that ascribed to the beliefs of the leader at that time.

 

Really a shame.

 

 

[VintageComics]

 

One of my favourites is a hard cover from the 1930s called "Street Gangs of Toronto". It includes a fold out map of Toronto with black dots to indicate where the gangs hang out.

 

Now that is a book I'd love to see some time.

 

[VintageComics]

I used to walk down town Toronto as a teenager and stalk the book stores and pawn shops picking up the odd Vintage magazines and book.

 

I liked to collect esoteric books myself. Stuff like books on engineering, history and trivia.

 

I would also collect old bibles from around the world and hardcovers of fictional works that appealed to me.

 

Now that I've settled down I look forward to rebuilding my library.

 

 

 

[drewincanada]

Books... now we're talkin'...

I'm an obsessive collector of books, with over 4000 in the house. Mostly modern firsts, but as far back as a 195-year-old book about Napoleon.

The highlights:

Signed books by

Bradbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Vonnegut

Groucho Marx

Harpo Marx

Carl Sandburg

Mickey Mantle

Dali (with a doodle)

Chabon

Richard Russo

PJ Farmer

Rube Goldberg

Cormac McCarthy

Roth

Edward Gorey

Hornby

Moorcock

Barry Gifford

And extensive collections of

Ralph Steadman (almost 300 pieces)

Donald Barthelme (US and British editions)

John Irving (including the dedication copy of Water Method Man)

TC Boyle

Kinky Friedman

Mark Helprin

Peter Carey (US, British and Australian editions)

Carl Hiassen

Thomas McGuane

Mark Leyner

Jonathan Lethem

Steve Aylett

Old cartoon books, pop-up books and weird books.

 

 

I like your taste!

 

I love buying odd/esoteric old books that I stumble across at used book/paper shows. More than the first editions, these are the ones I usually haul out to show people, and the reaction is usually perplexed bemusement... or straight-up disinterest.

 

One of my favourites is a hard cover from the 1930s called "Street Gangs of Toronto". It includes a fold out map of Toronto with black dots to indicate where the gangs hang out.

 

But my all-time fave was actually written and self-published by my grandfather. It's called "As You Become a Man", and it's a series of perforated pages that you are supposed to tear out and give to your son. They are supposed to explain the facts of life, but anyone reading them would be more likely to avoid coming within 50 feet of a woman for the rest of their life. It's a jaw-dropper. Do a search on abebooks for the author "Arntfield". You'll find it. As the description there says, it teaches a "god-fearing view of sex". God and woman-fearing.

 

My understanding is that "fearing" in the original Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic (or whatever it was in biblical times) didn't mean fearing like we think of it in English; instead, it was a sense of seriously revering or honoring something. An example of this common misconception is the bumper sticker I saw that went something along the lines of "Marines don't fear anyone except God."

 

I haven't read your grandfather's work, but it sounds like you're saying it was in the scary territory.

 

Well, that was the bookseller's description of the book, not mine, but I think that both interpretations of the word "fearing" work here. I believe my grandfather intended to be reverential, but 70 years later it's just plain scary.

[drewincanada]

 

One of my favourites is a hard cover from the 1930s called "Street Gangs of Toronto". It includes a fold out map of Toronto with black dots to indicate where the gangs hang out.

 

Now that is a book I'd love to see some time.

 

 

Next time you're in T.O., Roy. (thumbs u

[FlyingDonut]

A little bit. I have a bunch of signed William Gibson 1st Editions,a bunch of Neil Stephenson signed 1st editions and then a smattering of other stuff.

 

Nerd.

 

(I do too. Prize collection is a first edition, signed copy of Neuromancer).

[rob_react]

A little bit. I have a bunch of signed William Gibson 1st Editions,a bunch of Neil Stephenson signed 1st editions and then a smattering of other stuff.

 

Nerd.

 

(I do too. Prize collection is a first edition, signed copy of Neuromancer).

 

Nerd? Who me?

 

Neuromancer is the one book I don't have

[FlyingDonut]

I believe BangZoom's thread in the Golden Age section shows a giant selection of extremely high grade first edition Arkham books, as well as some Tarzan books. You may need to go past the posts showing the Arc of the Covenant first, however.

 

I'd LOVE to get a true first edition signed copy of The Stand. I've always heard rumors that there are a couple of copies of the uncut manuscript floating around - which is supposed to be longer than the "Uncut" version that came out in 1990.

 

Now that I think about it, I have a full set of the first paperback editions of the James Bond books by Ian Fleming. Bought them at a church rummage sale maybe 30 years ago for a dime each.