Book reviews, thoughts about books, basically a blog about books
When I was in college a dear friend gave me a rare book that meant a lot to him, a first edition of I.A. Richards' Science and Poetry. It was actually Richards' personal copy of his book. It's fair to say that I did not really appreciate the gift at the time.
Years later the book was lost and when my friend died earlier this year I went through some feelings and one of those feelings was guilt about the book.
The lesson is: hold on to your special books!
Just about the only thing I enjoy more than fried seafood in summertime is finding a new bookstore.
Last week, my husband and I decided to take a day and do some book shopping. Big surprise, right? Well, instead of hitting our favorite indies or checking out the new big-box chain, we decided to drive up to Cape Ann, on Boston's north shore, to visit four new-to-us used bookstores.
After a delicious lunch of fried clams at the magnificent Clam Box (246 High St., Ipswich, Mass.), we headed to nearby Rowley and the fun Broken In Books (317 Haverhill St., Rowley, Mass.).
Broken In Books stocks a great mix of used paperbacks and hardcovers in most genres; you can find neatly organized shelves and piles of new arrivals and random things, as well as glass-cased collectibles and rarities. I browsed the craft section while Jeff got a first edition of a David Eddings book, The Demon Lord of Karanda.
After a pleasant time at Broken In Books, we headed off to Middleton and Hand It Back Book Smyth (240 S. Main St., Middleton, Mass.), a smaller strip-mall bookstore. But don't let the size fool you. Hand It Back Book Smyth is stocked wall-to-wall with all the books you could want. The plentiful and well-organized sections for romance novels and science fiction got my attention at first, but a little wander lead me to their nice selection of general fiction. You can spend a good long time among their generous offerings.
Once you're done here, head over to Richardson's Ice Cream (156 S. Main St., Rte 114, Middleton, Mass.) for one of their legendary cones.
Once we had enjoyed one cone of pineapple coconut ice cream (me) and one of German chocolate cake (Jeff), it was time to head up to Manchester-by-the-Sea for what turned out to be my favorite bookstore of the day, Manchester By the Book (27 Union St., Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass.).
All I can say is, wow. Lately I've found myself collecting Margaret Atwood first editions and this remarkable store full to the brim with rare and collectible volumes had an entire shelf of them. And they had a beautiful Folio Society edition of Jane Eyre, and all very reasonable. I came home with the Jane Eyre, two Canadian Atwood firsts (Wilderness Tips and Bodily Harm), one British first (The Robber Bride) and a British first edition of A.S. Byatt's Angels and Insects. It wasn't the cheapest bookstore run ever, but it wasn't that bad, all told, and I found some real treasures without even getting past the B section.
We went out to the picturesque seaside town of Gloucester for our final bookstore of the
day, the Dogtown Book Shop (132 Main St., Gloucester, Mass.) Dogtown has a respectable collection of used fiction but it seemed to me that its real strength is in nonfiction, especially nautical and local history. Dogtown also has a lot of really rare and valuable old books, cased in of course, as well as an interesting collection of old cookbooks and art history. I spent all my money in Manchester by the Book so while I did enjoy a nice browse, I didn't end up buying anything here.
But I did discover four great new bookstores, all of which I'm sure I'll be visiting again!
In the short stack we have:
Dovid Bergelson's collection of short stories, The Shadows of Berlin. Bergelson was considered one of the pre-eminent Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union; Stalin had him killed for it. My husband picked up this City Lights publication for me on his trip to San Francisco last week.
Paul Harding's Tinkers just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I got it at Porter Square Books in Cambridge.
Magda Szabo's novel The Door intrigued me after I heard about it on the Almost Insider blog. It came to me via Bookmooch. And seriously, if you love European literary fiction, you have to start following this fantastic blog.
Stendhal's On Love, in a beautiful Hesperus Press paperback edition, came via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.
The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott was almost lost to me; I was supposed to get it for review back in March, but it got lost in the mail and the publicist rushed me another copy. Thank you! I started reading it already and I'm really enjoying it.
And my special treat? A first edition of Vladimir Nabokov's Despair. I found this ex-library copy
at the wonderful Lorem Ipsum, a used bookstore in Inman Square, Cambridge, for a very reasonable price. I don't think I ever imagined I would own any first-edition Nabokov, so I am over the moon to have found this little treasure.
I read Despair on my big college Nabokov kick, when for a summer I would go back and forth from the Harvard Coop every so often to read my way through his novels. To be honest I don't remember much about it but I'm really looking forward to reacquainting myself with it. Yippee!
What are you thrilled to have found this week? You can find more Friday Finds at ShouldbeReading.wordpress.com.
Every Sunday I come here and write about a book I'm reading today or planning on reading today, and every Sunday I almost never read, or read very little. Maybe today will be different, but I don't know.
I'm still working my way through Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America, which I want very much to like. So far? Eh. I'll keep plugging away though. I'm going to make another attempt to start Olga Slavnikova's 2017, which I have to read for LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. I've tried a couple of times now, and have never got past the second page.
It's been a busy week- it seems like every springtime there's one week when every reading I want to attend takes place, and I just get to as many as I can. After the Newburyport Literary Festival last weekend, this past week local appearances were made by Peter Carey, Alina Bronsky, Helen Simonson and Atiq Rahimi, and I got to the first and last of those; my book club met the night Bronsky was here, and Simonson and Rahimi were appearing the same day and I couldn't get to both. I'm going to have more to say about the Rahimi event later in the week- it was one of the best book talks I've been to in a long time.
Yesterday and Friday was also the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair, held over at Boston University. I spent a fun hour or so browsing among the exhibits. To be honest, there was almost nothing that I was interested in buying, although I did have a great conversation with a Canadian bookseller (and fellow Margaret Atwood fan) about which books are and aren't collectible. One question was on the commercial viability of personalized signed books. I said I thought they were worthless and she said no, to some collectors they're more valuable because they show the human touch. I get books signed and personalized because I'm a fan, not because I'm trying to build up some fortune in collectible books, but I still appreciated hearing that.
My husband came home with some treasures- some books on Roman history he was interested in. So between that and my chat with the Canadian bookseller, it was a fun day. We saw lots of neat things- collectible children's books, various editions of Alice in Wonderland- including one signed by Lewis Carroll for about $2,500- but not one Jane Eyre in the whole room. Oh well. Someone was selling a nice set of Jane Austens, though. But I don't collect those.
I've also been sewing a little again lately. Here's my cat on a quilt I'm making for him. I'm not done with it yet, but it's nice to know it's already kitty-approved:
Hope you're having a relaxing Sunday too. More Sunday Salon can be found here.
