8 posts tagged “vonnegut”

Occasionally I buy a new copy of a book I already own. The reason I do this is usually one of these three reasons:
 
1. There's an author event coming up that I plan to attend, and I'll buy a nice hardcover copy to replace my paperback copy.

2. The author is one of my favorites, and I've found a really cool other edition of one of their works. This happens most frequently with Kurt Vonnegut books - I own a lot of new Dial paperbacks that all have similar covers with the V. Strand often has very old (not first editions or first printings, but old nonetheless), very cool hardcover copies that came out within a few years of the original edition. They sell them for $7.50, and I'm always thrilled when I find one I don't have. In fact, they are holding just such a copy of Breakfast of Champions for me, which I'm going to try to pick up tomorrow.

3. I've found a very cheap copy (usually 50 cents or 1 dollar) of a book I absolutely love. I usually find these at Friends of the Library book sales. Often, I give these copies to my good friends - happy to find a cheap copy of one of my favorite books to share with others. However, since I give them away, it doesn't really count as buying a copy of a book I already own, since I wouldn't count new books that I bought as gifts. The occasions where it does count though, is when I buy a copy under the same circumstances, but plan on keeping it as a "lending copy." I don't like to lend books generally, which is horrid but true. Especially nice copies or my favorite books. I've found out too many times the hard way that many other people don't have high standards of taking care of other people's books. I've gotten copies back that I lent out like new, and they've come back months later with dozens of dog-eared pages, bent covers, and blackend edges. But I still like to share books with friends, so if I see a super cheap copy of a great book, I'll buy it and lend it. I just did that with The History of Love by Nicole Krause. I have lots of friends at work who read, and I've been passing the book around from person to person.

So now I've willingly admitted that I'm completely obsessed with books and book collecting, not just reading. (Though if you've read my blog for any length of time, you probably already know that.) My love of reading is the force behind my love of book collecting, but I am aware that it's still a huge fixation. 

If I buy another copy of a book for any of the reasons listed above, I don't list them in my monthly Polysyllabic Spree posts. This is because the intent of my Polysyllabic Spree is to track the flow of books acquired (books to read) verses books I've read. Buying another copy of something I already own does not affect this, so I omit them. I also don't list children's picture books, mainly because they can be read in about 5 minutes, and I don't want to falsely inflate my book read list.

Anyway, the reason behind all this back story, is that I want to start posting pictures of some of the cool old editions I find. When I was visiting in Boston a few weeks ago, I went to a great used book store in Concord called Books With A Past. I found two wonderful old copies of J. D. Salinger books.

The first is a Modern Library edition of Nine Stories. It was $10.

Nine Stories

The second was a very old, beat up paperback of The Catcher in the Rye. It seems very appropriate to have an ancient copy that was used in a high school, well worn from many adolescent reads. Despite how beat up the cover is and the markings, the book is in pretty good condition. It's not falling apart at the seams, and the text is clean and has no writing or underlining. It looks like it's the 25th printing of the Bantam paperback, printed in August 1969. It was only $1.50.

Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye

I finished Mother Night. It's going to take me a while to remove myself far enough from the book to judge fairly where it ranks in my list of favorite Vonneguts. Because if I were to answer right now I'd without hesitation say that it's my favorite, in no uncertain terms. I loved it. It's a fascinating plot that I could not put down, but had to put down sometimes to scribble quotes and passages down in my notebook. Like the other best novels of Vonnegut, it's a shining example of how the issues he writes about are still relevant today.

Here are my favorite lines:

"Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself - will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows - some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history--
But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, "This fact I can do without."

"I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutters as for rewards and punishments that were fair."

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive."

Site that shows photos of fast food from advertisements, compared to how the food actually looks when you get it.

Photos of extremely incredible Russian Cakes.

Another cool post about Kurt Vonnegut: John Irving shares Kurt Vonnegut stories.

Ryan found this cool world map that shows all the places in the world that have been book settings (and their frequency of use). It also shows the settings used over time, and you can clearly see the expansion into North America.

My mom shared this one with me: Literature Map lets you type in the name of an author, and then shows you visually other authors who are similar.