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Browsers' Bookstore Newsletter for August, 2006

Summer is pretty much over, or will be soon, and I still haven’t painted my house, much to my wife’s dismay. At the store, however, we are actually accomplishing a few things. “That Room” is now emptied of all books, and is the official home of the book repair business mentioned last newsletter. Thanks to everyone who has been patient enough to maneuver around piles of books and strangely-placed bookcases. We should be completely done by early September. (We’re working on another project that has delayed things a bit – more on that next newsletter.)

In addition to moving everything around, we also bought a very large collection of books this month, which has made our “New Arrivals” section quite a bit more crowded than normal. So, be sure to poke around there for some interesting stuff – especially if you like older books.

NEW ARRIVALS

Be sure to check out our “old fiction” section for lots of new arrivals. These are generally priced between $4 and $8 and are books that were (and in some cases still are) very popular, but have not quite made it into the Literary Canon. But there’s still lots of fun reading.

1. Grace Livingston Hill. Among the old fiction we are going through were several copies of GLH hardcovers, some with great vintage DJs. $5-10
2. Three Guineas. Virginia Woolf. First American Edition. The book had sections of the DJ pasted to the inside of the book. We’ve put those sections back together, and have encapsulated a long newspaper article that was laid in. Endpapers still show glue marks, and rear endpaper still has a newsprint picture of Woolf attached. Text block and boards are nice. $20
3. The Cyborg Handbook. Chris Hables Gray, editor. This is a big (540 pp.) book that at first glance seems a silly compilation by people who have watched “The Matrix” too many times. However, this is actually a serious book published by Routledge. I can’t understand a single thing in it, so it must be good. A strange mixture of fact & fiction, thoroughly annotated and indexed; good luck. $18.
4. Our New Alaska; or, The Seward Purchase Vindicated. Charles Hallock. 1st edition, 1886. Hallock has been called the Dean of American Sportsmen, whatever good that does you. Even though this comes two decades after the U.S. purchased the Alaskan territory, it remains an early descriptive work with excellent illustrations by T. J. Richardson, and a fold-out map. Although originally intended for the armchair explorer, this has as much interest to an historian today. $125.
5. Homemade Lightning: Creative Experiments in Electricity, Second edition. R. A. Ford. I dare you! $10.
6. On a Scale That Competes with the World: The Art of Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Robert L. Pincus. This paperback edition has a new preface. The Kienholzes have made some big and freaky tableaux, although the text will tell you that it is not “freaky” but “important.” Shame on me! $17.50.
7. Old medical books. From a different collection of old books, here are four great titles: A Compend of Surgery by Horwitz (1898); A Compend of Pharmacy by Stewart (1901); A Compend of Obstetrics by Landis (1901); and A Manual of Prescription Writing by Mann (1887.) One interesting tidbit about the last one: it was once in the library of Dr. A. G. Prill, a Salem doctor who was an active birder in the Willamette Valley.
8. You Are... A Puzzle Book for Children from 8 to 80. Emery I. Gondor. 1st edition, 1937. I know I always stick in a cute vintage children’s book, so here’s this month’s. You know “Where’s Waldo”? Now, think of 1930s children’s book illustrations with hidden objects, along with a few brain teasers, mazes, etc. This one is really cute. Now, the book this guy illustrated that you REALLY want (but first, let me just comment that I LOVE his name – sounds like a Star Trek planet – “Dammit, Scottie, beam me up, I must get off Gondor!!”) is Ten Little Colored Boys – you can just imagine the illustrations in that one. You Are... has a few kids of stereotypical ethnicities, as well. Nice shape. $10.
9. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. D. H. Lawrence. “Samuel Roth Edition”, 1932. A pirated edition of the classic work. It is expurgated, but – according to Roth – not very much. Apparently this guy Roth was not the most reputable of editors, but he did such a good job of editing (and his edition was selling so well), that the authorized edition published later was based on Roth’s! Wacky. $15.
10. Coos County: The Early Years. Kathy Erickson. A nice compilation of old photographs with accompanying text. If you’re one of those hyper-organized people who buy all of their Christmas presents months in advance, this would be a great gift for your favorite Oregon historian. $30.
11. The Great Southwest along the Santa Fe. Fred Harvey. A collection from 1929 of about 30 colored plates – some photographs, some paintings – of various picturesque scenes in America’s southwest. The cover is not in the best shape, but the text and photos are excellent. A neat book, with some great shots of trains and Native Americans. $15.
12. A nice collection of Christian books, including some good theology books.
13. Four books by Ernest Thompson Seton from 1922 in nice condition: Rolf in the Woods, Wild Animals at Home, Wild Animal Ways, Two Little Savages. Seton was a founding member of the Boy Scouts, but these days he’s mostly known for his great nature writing and animal stories. Although his name doesn’t quite have the recognition of Jack London, the great secret of booksellers is that books by Seton sell faster than those by London. $10 each.

NERDY TRIVIA

A lot of times, book nerds like myself also happen to be numbers nerds. If you fall in the same category, here are some numbers for first printing runs of upcoming books. (I know these are new books and we sell used books, but they’ll all be floating in here within a few days, weeks, or months of their release.)

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. This is by the guy that did "The Zombie Survival Guide" one of the most clever books I've seen for quite a while. 125,000
HRH. Danielle Steele. 800,000
The Road. Cormac McCarthy. 250,000
Nature Girl. Carl Hiaasen. Hard to believe this guy is still outstripped by Danielle Steele. 600,000
The Light of Evening. Edna O’Brien 35,000
Fragile Things. Neil Gaiman. 150,000
Black Girl/White Girl. Joyce Carol Oates. How the mighty have fallen! Oates is a National Book Award, Pulitzer, PEN/Faulkner, National Book Critics Circle, LA Times, Bram Stoker, O Henry, Pushcart, etc. etc. prize winner, and her latest book has only half the print run as the Zombie War, and less than ten percent the run of Danielle Steele. 60,000.

I’ve got a lot of books to sort through, so that’s it for this month. Happy reading!

Scott Givens

Browsers' Bookstore
121 NW 4th St.
Corvallis, OR 97330
www.browsersbookstore.com

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