Monday, July 18, 2022

New Treasure for My Booker Prize Collection

 

On my cruise vacation a couple of weeks ago I visited Commonwealth Books, a used and rare bookstore in downtown Boston. When I lived in Boston I was a regular here, and bought a lot of things like Angela Thirkell books and harder-to-find used fiction. It's a fun labryrinthy bookstore; they don't have an inventory system and good luck finding something specific, but you will find things you didn't know you needed for sure.

I was checking out their modern firsts shelf and came across a US first edition of Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize winner Midnight's Children in good condition (and pre-Booker state) for a low low price under $100. 

Normally I would not bother with a US first when there is an earlier British or other first edition (and with Booker winners before 2016 the first edition was rarely American) but true firsts of Midnight's Children go for $1,000 and up so that was never going to happen.

It may not be the true first but priced to sell as it was, it's the only first I'm ever going to have of this particular book so I'm pretty excited!

2 comments:

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

That sounds like a great find. I love the hunt in those one-of-a-kind bookstores that are rather plentiful still in New England.

Mae Travels said...

I haven't been to a bookstore like that in ages. I remember reading Midnight's Children before Rushdie was famous, but it was a borrowed copy -- too bad.

best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com