Picked these up today, a dollar apiece. What a deal! I actually picked them out on Tuesday, but they weren’t half-off, but they were exactly where I left them, and today were now half-off. The two Mozart CDs by BIZ sound great. It is difficult for me to find classical I don’t have already at a thrift store, but it can still happen.
The Dr. Seuss book is substantial and is very detailed into his life and work. The World War II book appeared pretty standard, but the illustrations are terrific. Vikings and the Patton book are great additions to the library as well.
Les Arts Florissants : Rameau – Les Sauvages ( extrait des Indes Galantes ) Elodie Fonnard Dodeman Justin Bonnet Juliette Perret Jérémie Delvert Virginie Thomas soprano Christophe Gautier Les Arts Florissants, chœur et orchestre William Christie et Paul Agnew, direction musicale
It seems these days, that most people don’t have the concept of a library; they just see someone who has “too many books”. I have been asked on more than one occasion: “You’re never going to be able to read that many books!” While it would be nice to have the ability to read all of my books, (I actually know a guy who can do this, but alas, I am a slow reader) one of the many benefits of having an actual library is the ability to wander and select something I hadn’t thought about in a long time. I’m a custodian of this custom library, full of volumes that people have put an immense amount of work into creating. It definitely isn’t just a “collection” of books.
A few weeks ago, I found two small, old volumes at the thrift store, and they were part of a set of five. Upon checking “The Registry”, also known as my spreadsheet, it turned out that I had the compilation of all five, a complete and singular volume in my library already. I had a tough time finding it though, because all of my World War I books are supposed to be in the same place, but I had to search and discover this was mistakenly among my older World War II books. But, it couldn’t hide, as The Registry doesn’t lie, it had to be here somewhere!
World War I was known as “The Great War”, or as in the case of this book, which was published in the same year as the war ended, 1918, “The World War”. There was no “World War II” yet, so nobody knew to call it “World War I”.
I found a piece of newspaper from what has to be a newspaper more than a hundred years old, and an invitation card from 1919, both used as bookmarks.
It is really neat to read books like this, written so soon after the war, and totally ignorant of the even worse war to come in just twenty years time from the publication of this one. There is a great amount of bias by the author, who was eventually a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army, but a lot of that comes from the perspective of the author and is very interesting to read. Francis A. March was active in that second war, so he saw a lot of violent history in his time.
Where do we go When we no longer have a home The flowers under the concrete Mom, tell me Where do we go Do we ever really know one day Or do we pretend, all the time Where does the heart go when it gets lost In doubts and winters Why do the days look alike Do we end up seeing what we assemble Mom, tell me Beyond The storm there is Love, love, love When the sky opens Everything becomes calm again And everything is fine Where does it go Happiness, this fragile thread When it wobbles and breaks Mom, tell me Where does it go Why does the world seem so big When we become a little bigger than before What happens to the dreams that flee And the memories we forget Will I always have questions Maybe I’ll make songs out of them Mom, tell me Beyond The storm there is Love, love, love When the sky opens Everything becomes calm again And everything is fine
Upon revisiting a thrift we had been to already today (looking for something Dad missed), they had put out this leather-bound version of a book I already have… there are only two of these on eBay, the cheapest listed at twice what I paid, and the other one was at five times what I paid, and this was in perfect shape! Considering I’ve been very much into these kind of deluxe volumes lately, this was an A+ find!
The leather-bound Easton Press and Barnes & Noble Collectors Editions section of my library.
I like beat-up books, old books, new books, books with deckle edges, and books with straight edges.
But leather-bound books, with sewn-in pages containing high-quality paper and ink and gilded edges… they feel great to hold while reading. I’m twenty pages away from finishing the first of four books by historian Ian Kershaw on Adolf Hitler, which is considered to be one of the best biographies ever written, while also being a very informative and entertaining read.
I found a set on Vladimir Lenin today, but it was in a different language… so, no. Makes sense as I think I would have been aware of a Lenin set like this?
One of the best sets in my library, Ian Kershaws’ biography of Adolf Hitler, reprint by Easton Press. I also have the regular hardbacks and the abridgement all-in-one volume.
I keep a catalog of all my books, but because my Hardy Boys collection has been in storage, an opportunity to finally catalog them finally came about and I discovered that I have a lot of doubles! Never noticed that back in the day.
Also, I’m not sure where they all came from, many were just in the house, and I read and kept them for myself. Some were my brothers’, and there are different names inside the cover of many of them, names I don’t recognize.
The first one I read was “The Secret of the Old Mill”, and I remember sitting on the step of Allendale Elementary’s second-grade classroom, and later reading it on our front porch. It was a big deal as it was a “real” book and not some children’s book with a lot of illustrations like we were used to.
The older, non-blue cover books were actually all re-written for their later blue cover releases, or heavily modified as it was believed that they were too deep and complex for young readers, or had some “offensive” material in them. I remember being captivated by these stories and characters, with nothing negative taken away from the experience. The two white books on the upper-right are modern reprints of the originals.
The oldest of these is from 1928. I didn’t fully realize that these non-blue covers originally had paper jackets with illustrated covers until much later.
And now, unfortunately, they are back in storage. Not enough shelf space available!
randyrydberg.org 