Fast Away the Old Year Passes

 

This Wednesday (December 28^th) John and I got together to visit, and we decided (as I has some Christmas gift money burning in my pocket) to check out the few places where books are still available in town. I had no high hopes of any good finds (the pleasure of the brotherly company was the main point of the jaunt) but we came back with some surprisingly good acquisitions.

The first place we went was the Seguin Public Library used bookstore. It is generally a good place to find a decent mix of old and new volumes, and it did not disappoint. I left with a total of five books for $12, all in very good shape.

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo (Del Rey/Ballantine Books)

Dreamquests: The Art of Don Maitz (Underwood/Miller)

First off there were a couple of slim Fantasy art books, The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo and Dreamquests: The Art of Don Maitz. These were not some of my especially favorite artists, but their work was everywhere on book covers and magazines when I was younger and looking at their work definitely conjures up a time. Vallejo’s statuesque blonde and her giant lizards were everywhere, on book and magazine covers, and even as a poster for a completely unrelated movie. Don Maitz’s picture of two vampiric brothers was on an issue of Eerie, which prompted my post yesterday on that subject; his artwork, too, was on covers and in magazines. Yes, they’re rather cheesy, but cheese can be a healthy part of a diet, especially aged cheese such as this.

The Thurber Carnival, by James Thurber ( Harper Perennial)

The Essential Tales of Chekhov, Edited by Richard Ford (Ecco Press/Harper)

Then there were a couple of classic volumes whose nice binding particularly caught my attention. Say what you will about the publishing industry, but a definite advance has been made in the binding of soft covers. The Thurber Carnival makes a good reading version compared to the old hardback I have (also purchased at the library bookstore). And because I have been branching out into Russian Literature in my old age, The Essential Tales of Chekhov looks like to be a handy sampler of his short stories.

The Book of the Dun Cow, by Walter Wangerin, Jr. (Harper & Row)

But the most unexpected prize found here was a hardback copy of The Book of the Dun Cow. This looks to be an original copy of the 1978 printing! The paper dust jacket is in surprisingly good shape for being over 40 years old. I’ve had a paperback copy since 1979; this is a definite upgrade.

The next place we visited was The Cranny, a small thrift store tucked away in the desolate wasteland of the old Seguin Crossroads Mall on the edge of town. The thick, swirling mass of leaves and litter that greeted us there did not bode well. We left that place empty-handed; there were a few things that lured (like a clumsily packaged audio version of The Hobbit on CD) but ultimately seemed not worth the risk.

Our visit to the Seguin Goodwill was a little more propitious. I found a hardback copy of Tolkien’s Roverandom with a somewhat damaged jacket that I insisted on buying for John, since he didn’t have a copy. I think it might very well be the first American edition. Anyway, I couldn’t leave that unlikely orphan behind. There were a couple of juvenile tie-ins to the Peter Jackson Tolkien films, but I was able to resist. But what I found next completely astounded me.

I have written lately about the first paperback copy of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King that I had back in middle school, the old tie-in to the musical Camelot. Here (as if summoned by the memory) was a copy of the identical book! It was in fairly good shape, too, for a 54-year-old paperback. I had forgotten the black spine and the photo on the back cover, and it looked a tad thinner than I recalled, but it was it. Well, for only $2 I had to have it. It seemed like fate.

And those, barring any unforeseen circumstances, are my last books of 2022. It has been an interesting time. It is odd; I have almost totally cleared my Wish List on Amazon, and I go into the New Year with few impending purchases on the horizon, and none that are urgent, always excepting the impending The Homecoming of Beorthnoth at the end of March.  But that’s in the almost unimaginable future; that’s next year.

New Old Books

Yesterday I walked over to the library (it's only a few blocks down the road, but in this heat and with my bad knee it seems farther) and took a look through their used bookstore there. I came home with six books for $11 (one of which was for a present and which I won't list here).

An excellent new reading copy. My three old individual books are about forty years old and getting fragile; this one volume is handy and has a great binding.

When I first saw this book I wondered if I already had it, it seemed so familiar. But checking my lists I didn't see it anywhere; it wasn't even in my Shadow Library posts. Perhaps I had a copy once and just forgot it. Anyhow, it is safe in the fold.

Not just a collection of cartoons, but a humorous meditation on business practices as if told by the manipulative Dogbert.

Another Penguin book and a medieval classic. Originally conceived as a handbook for the clergy to learn to become more like Christ, it became a religious exemplar for many different kinds of Christians in many stations of life.

Short stories, cartoons, and parodies by James Thurber, the author known today for a few fantasy classics like "The Thirteen Clocks" and popularizing the name of "Walter Mitty" for a man who daydreams about a more romantic life. This book seemed like an orphan out of time, and I was more than happy to give it a new home.

Back to School Specials

The Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber. Illustrations by Marc Simony.

Another acquisition from the great San Antonio Library Sale. They seemed determined to get rid of any good books they still had, or maybe they had new copies. Anyway, I had read it in college and was as pleased as punch to find this copy. A poetic book, a fractured fairy tale, and has the Golux, the only Golux in the world, and his indescribable hat. This book is the obvious ancestor of Peter S. Beagle’s “The Last Unicorn”. A book, like the Golux’s hat, that is indescribable, a mixture of whimsy, horror (the scene where the ball comes bouncing down the staircase is somehow worse than anything I’ve ever read of in many a ‘scary’ book), and magic, and must be experienced to even begin to comprehend what it is. Its library binding somehow makes it an even more authentic experience. [Not my cover.]

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.

Rivets and Sprockets, Written and Illustrated by Alexander Key.

A book I read in grade school and in the public library during the summer. There were two others in the series; the first was “Sprockets: A Little Robot”, and the third was “Bolts: A Robot Dog”. Sprockets is a factory mistake: a robot the size of a boy with a brain the size of a planet (a genuine Asimov Positronic Brain!). His little brother Sprockets had only a semi-positronic brain. Together they help Dr. Bailey and his son get to Mars to answer a mysterious signal before the evil scientist Professor Vladimir Katz can claim it for the Russian government. Looking now at the dilemma of a little metal boy in a world of humans, I wonder if my own character of Athenor might not have been influenced by stealth memories of Sprockets (who also wears clothes, not a robotic or brass homuncular trait). Had no idea until years later that this was the same Key who wrote the Witch Mountain books, or “The Golden Enemy”, a book we read in middle school. We didn’t really pay much attention to author’s names back then. This copy is from the great San Antonio Library sale.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Science Fiction. Series. Hardback.

The Water Babies, by Charles Kingsley. Illustrations by Roberta McDonald.

Junior Deluxe Edition. For years I avoided reading this book; illustrations and adaptations I’d seen of it seemed a little too frilly and twee to me. When I read Humphrey Carpenter’s synopsis and analysis in “Secret Gardens: The Golden Age of Children’s Literature”, however, I gave it a try and found it actually deserving of its classic status. It is the story of a poor chimney sweep named Tom who falls into a stream and drowns, becoming a Water-Baby in the process. He must undergo a Purgatorial, evolutionary process as he travels through the sea and grows wiser and kinder, eventually saving his cruel former master (who also has died) from the Back of Beyond. “And then, if my story is not true, something better is; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard work and cold water. But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true.”

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.

The Peculiar Miss Pickett, by Nancy R. Julian. Illustrations by Donald E. Cooke.

Part of the “Nanny Invasion” of America after Mary Poppins, Miss Pickett was a babysitter with peculiarly powerful spectacles. I read it in 5^th Grade, I think, and what I remembered most about it was the gathering of bears that included the Big Bear, Ursa Major, with stars in its eyes. I didn’t find it all that impressive even then, except from a comparative literature point of view. I was developing an eye for sources and influences, or ‘copying’, as I called it then. Bought this ‘in memoriam’ years later. Besides, it’s a Scholastic. I find now it has a sequel, “Miss Pickett’s Secret”.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Fantasy. Softcover.

The Wizard in the Tree, by Lloyd Alexander. Illustrations by Laszlo Kubinyi.

The first Alexander I ever read, in Briesemeister. If I traveled back in time right now, I could locate its exact position on the shelves. The story of the kitchen maid Mallory, who discovers a wizard who has been caught in a tree since before the magic people left for Vale Innis, an age ago. As they seek to revive his rusty powers, the two get caught up in the machinations of the Dickensian Squire Scupnor, who thinks they have seen too much of his evil plans. An entertaining book that fed my want of wizards, with nice pencilly pictures. But it wasn’t quite “The Hobbit”. Hard to believe that I read this but not “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, though. A Dell Yearling.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Softcover.

The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. Cover by Jean-Leon Huens.

Eight tales connected to the history of Prydain, explaining some background and mysteries about the characters and objects in the Chronicles. A Dell Yearling.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Short stories. Fantasy. Softcover.

Homer Price and Centerburg Tales: More Adventures of Homer Price, Written and Illustrated by Robert McCloskey.

Read these stories back in 4^th grade, and they are a slice of small-town Mayberry-esque Americana, An out of control donut machine, a musical mousetrap, mail-order seeds gone wild, an ear-worm song that takes over the town, a slick salesman selling an ‘invisible’ enhancer, all lead to adventure and mayhem. I love the picture of the musical mousetrap, a vehicle to lure away the mice rather than kill them. And we can all learn the lessons taught by buying Ever-So-Much-More-So. Got these copies of newer Scholastic reprints at Half-Price.

Ranking: Keepers.

File Code: Children’s Books. Americana. Softcovers.

The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber. Illustrated by Marc Simont. Introduction by Neil Gaiman.

A New York Review Children’s Classic Collection book, with their signature red spine binding. A new deluxe edition I had to have. See elsewhere in the Inventory for my review of the book.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.

The Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs (Illustrated by Paul Galdone), and The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek (Illustrated by Hubert Buel, by Evelyn Sibley Lampman.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all small children love dinosaurs. How much more can they love a dinosaur named George, the talking, peaceable last of the stegosaurus who has the chameleon-like ability to fade into the rocks and sand of the desert and thus evade detection. It’s no wonder he makes friends with the children who discover him and who then must keep his secret. I read the ‘Cricket Creek’ one back in McQueeney; I don’t believe they had a copy of the other one. When I saw these copies at the fabled San Antonio Library sale, I had to have them. They are bound in that old-fashioned school binding that somehow incorporate the cover picture into the boards; are they just bought that way or is there a process they can do? I think the ‘cricket’ in the title might have helped draw me. I always had a liking for crickets; they were harmless, easy to handle, and swarmed the school. Our grade school paper (a mimeograph) was even called “The Cricket Chirps”; its mascot was a cricket in a matador suit.

Ranking: Keepers.

File Code: Adventure. Children’s Book. Hardback.

Mr. Revere and I, and Captain Kidd’s Cat, Written and Illustrated by Robert Lawson.

Two fairly harshly used ex-library editions of Lawson’s books, one told by a horse and the other by a cat. Personally, I’d like to find a copy of “I Discover Columbus”, as told by his faithful parrot. More looks at history through the eyes of the animals who happened to be there. I read ‘Revere’ years ago in school, but still haven’t got around to ‘Cat’ yet.

Ranking: Essential. Essential. Keeper. In that order.

File Code: History. Beast Fable. Hardbacks.

Grade School Greats

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, and Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor Cameron.

Two boys build their own rocket, and with the help of the eccentric Mr. Bass – whose origins may not be entirely earthly – visit a small planet observable only through a special filter. There they save a strange race of little bulbous-headed people (oddly like the Greys of UFO lore) from extinction. In the sequel they return with Mr. Bass’s cousin (who remains on the planet) and a skeptical stowaway. I read the Mushroom books at the public library during the summer reading program and enjoyed them immensely. Kids with their own rocket? You bet! These reprints don’t have the illustrations, and there are three others in the series: “Mr. Bass’s Planetoid”, “A Mystery for Mr. Bass”, and “Time and Mr. Bass”. I have ‘Planetoid’ in an old hardback, with the illustrations.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Soft cover.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary. Illustrated by Louis Darling.

More mice and their secret life. Ralph the mouse lives in a hotel, and when he finds a toy motorcycle, he finds he can make it go by mimicking the sound. Adventure ensues. Has a sequel, “Runaway Ralph”, which I don’t have. Made into a movie with stop-motion in 1986.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill. Illustrations by Ronni Solbert.

I used to have a paperback copy in the old days. I associate it mainly with middle school, when environmentalism, anti-big business, and protest were even hotter than it was in 1964, when the book was first written. I see in Wikipedia that the dates inside have been updated over the years so that it can still be set in the future. This is a new copy. I can see where this had an influence on my future Chestertonian positions.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Young Adult Book. Paperback.

The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by Earl Mayan.

A Companion Library of Classics Edition, which we had in grade school. I remember it being on the old metal bookshelf in the back-bedroom’s closet for a while. In the best condition of any of the old department store children’s books we ever got, even though it was very well read. Mended with transparent packing tape. “The Jungle Book” was one of our favorites, perhaps because of the Disney movie, which we’d seen in the theater.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Classic. Hardback.

Great American Folk Heroes, by Lewfy Olfson. Illustrated (poorly) by Richard D. Wolf.

Thought I was getting something like “Tall Tale America”, but no. Has my name and “Grade 4” on the cover. The fact that it still exists (ragged though it be) is a clue that it was not a favorite.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. Illustrated by Dick Cuffari.

An Illustrated Junior Library book. It was in a copy like this that I first read TWITW, but hardbacked, in middle school, with these illustrations. I was inclined to it, both by the old Rankin/Bass TV show and the Disney Golden book in 3^rd Grade. And now I really got into Grahame’s wonderful prose. Bought this copy in memorium, as it were, for these old pictures (see the picture of Mole End). The domesticity, the snugness, the joys of the countryside, sank deep into my soul.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

The Great Quillow, by James Thurber. Illustrated by Doris Lee.

Bought this at a library sale, in the hopes of finding a new “Thirteen Clocks”, but no such luck. Perhaps my least favorite Thurber. [Not my cover.]

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Hardback.

Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Jared Lobel, Illustrated by the Author.

Frog and Toad were fairly new (1970) when we started reading them, and we had at least a few from Weekly Reader over the years. We loved the whimsical semi-anthropomorphic set up with little houses, teapots, beds, and buttons, and friendly Frog and tetchy Toad. This was a new hardback I got years later.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Hardback.

Storyland Favorites, by Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester

An old grade school textbook. I don’t particularly remember if we used it, but there is an illustration to “How the Bear Lost His Tail” of a bear with a striped muffler, looking exactly like my own character, Bear. Coincidence or what?

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Textbook. Hardback.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Joseph Schindelman.

The movie came out in 1971 and was a big noise around the school. I remember Scott Bate got great points for bringing the record to show and tell. When I checked out the book (in 4^th grade?) I accidentally lost it by leaving it on the roof of the car when we were loading in and forgetting it. Mom was pissed when she had to pay for that! That was the old ‘chocolate’ Oompa-Loompas edition, replaced later by the rosy skinned blonde-haired Oompa-Loompas. That’s what this later secondhand edition has. Dahl’s attitude reminds me of Chesterton’s quote: “For children are innocent and love justice, while [adults] are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” [without this jacket.]

Ranking: essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback.

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert.

This looks like it might be an original 1961 edition. By the time Mrs. Bratton was reading it to us in 4^th Grade (1973) it had already hit classic status and was appearing in textbooks. I loved the cast of giant bugs and their big personalities, who reminded me of Baum’s eccentrics. And we always said that Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker could have been played by our teachers Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Davenport. It had the classic form of a strange journey in an unusual mode of transportation with episodes of adventure along the way (like ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’, or an ‘Imram’). Full of Dahl’s Hilaire-Belloc-like poetry. [without this jacket.]

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Donald Chaffin.

An ex-library book. I preferred the illustrations in John’s copy, but these are all right. Read years beyond even high school, so it was a little late to actually have much of an effect on me. Still, with its underground house and animal families, it does have all the right elements that appeal to me.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback.

The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur, Retold and Illustrated by Howard Pyle.

The last volume in his four Arthur books, this copy is from a San Antonio library sale. So I only need “The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions” to complete the set. The art is the main point of having them.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Legend. Art. Hardback. Classic.

Library Inventory for August 5, 2020

Knickerbocker’s History of New York, by Washington Irving. Paperback from 1965, with commensurate wear and tear. Written at the somewhat leisurely pace of Irving’s time, it’s one of the earliest American classics. Wry, satirical, affectionately mock-heroic, Irving brought many of the powers he lavished on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” to this work. In their drinking, eating, and smoking habits, and in their phlegmatic difficulty in getting stirred up, his Dutch settlers greatly resemble Tolkien’s later Hobbits. This endears them to me. Ranking: Essential. File Code: Humor. Historical. Paperback.

The Devil and Daniel Webster and Other Stories, by Stephen Vincent Benet. Illustrated by Harold Denison. Had to have this tale in its own book. Read the story in so many places and times, from grade school on. Part of American mythology by now. An influence at least on my own book. Pretty good movie with Walter Huston, too. Ranking: Keeper. Code File: Anthology. Short Stories. Paperback.

The White Deer, by James Thurber. Illustrations by the Author. Another fantasy from the poetic cartoonist, in the same vein, if a little inferior to, “The Thirteen Clocks”. Definitely an influence on Peter S, Beagle’s “The Last Unicorn”. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Fantasy. Paperback.

archy and mehitabel, by Don Marquis. Illustrations by George Herriman. “Vers Libre” poems and stories by the cockroach incarnation of a failed poet, chronicling the life among the animal denizens that the bug encounters. Read “archy confesses” for the poem that sticks out for me. Yet another secondhand copy, from the great years of Half and Yesterday’s Warehouse. Ranking: Probably Dispensable, but why? File Code: Poetry. Humor. Paperback.

Islandia, by Austin Tappan Wright I bought this book (published 1966) because I had heard good things about it in the fantasy society, and thought I was lucky to find it. From the bits I could manage, it seems more to me like a soap opera with fantasy trappings. I could not get into it. Still, culturally significant? Ranking: Dispensable. File Code: Fantasy? Novel. Paperback.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Written and Illustrated by Howard Pyle. I bought this when I wanted an edition with Pyle’s artwork, not so much to read. It was paired with a twin edition of “King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table”, which I sold when I got a hardback copy of that book. Ranking: Keeper File Code: Legend. Children’s Book.

Dune; Dune Messiah; and Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert. I first became interested in Dune when our cousin Billy loaned me a whole paper grocery bag of books. I returned them all – except for “Dune” and “The Swords Trilogy” (more on that later). I then bought the hardbacks starting with “God Emperor of Dune” and giving up at “Chapterhouse: Dune”. I’m glad I did, because the franchise continues in a decaying orbit around the original trilogy. I later sold those hardbacks. The series is plagued with unsuccessful attempts to adapt it to the screen; the fascinations of the story (especially the original book) are not fully translatable in a visible medium. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Science Fiction. Novel. Paperbacks.

National Lampoon’s Doon, by Ellis Weiner. A grand parody of Frank Herbert’s classic “Dune”, replacing the war between great houses and the spice trade with the cut-throat restaurant business and centering on “the dessert planet” where giant wild pretzels roam through a wasteland of sugar. It loves to prick the convolutions of Herbert’s lifestyle: "Think on it! he thought on it," and "There is nothing more useless than a mystical busboy." Ranking: I love it! File Code: Parody. Humor. Novel. Paperback.