Tag: book about books

I’m not sure it’s a good idea…

… for a rabid book hoarder (such as myself) to get ahold of a book like this: Miller’s Collecting Books by Catherine Porter (book # 67 of 2009), which I found in a pile of bargain books at National Book Store.

I’d been reserving this for a nice leisurely read, and finally grabbed it off the TBR pile during the 24 hour read-a-thon, appointing it my last read for the event so that I wouldn’t be pressured to rush through it.

The book is a nice hardbound volume with thick, glossy pages and lots of colored photos. Published by Miller’s (an antiques price guide that has paved the way for the average person to start collections, or buy and sell with confidence), the book is an excellent guide to all the basic information you need to know about collecting books: the parts of a book, bindings, illustration techniques, printing processes, and finally more than a dozen chapters on what kinds of books you can collect.

The introduction sounds like a call from the mother ship:

“Book-collecting is often associated with academics or dark, musty shops; a secret, inaccessible world for the initiated only — and maybe this was once so. But today these are myths, and this guide seeks to dispel them. It is surprising how many people buy one or two books, slowly, without necessarily meaning to, begin to build up a collection and get hooked.“

I haven’t really particular about old first editions as some people are because my allergies are easily triggered by dust and other particle allergens (among many other things) but I realized the books I have today could be worth more in the future, and so I make a solemn promise to dust (achoo!) my shelves more frequently.

Plus, the book validates my irrational habit of upgrading paperbacks into hardcovers that my book club friends have dubbed as “doing a Blooey”:

“For some rare books it is possible that the only copy to be had will be in poor condition or imperfect, in which case this will be better than nothing. Generally, however, the rule is always to buy the best copy you can find, and upgrade if you find a better one.“

The book also explains why they don’t make books like they used to:

“With the increase of mechanization and the arrival of the iron presses used for printing newspapers as well as books, alongside a substantial increase in literacy and demand for affordable printing matter, the quality of most printing declined. Speed, quantity and cost became key factors. Cheaper paper made by machine and full of acid was used, and stereotyping came into use across Europe..”

And how the dust jacket came to be:

“The dust-jacket as protective covering became familiar in the early part of this century, and was initially plain, featuring only the title and author. Publishers soon began to commission artists to decorate these covers, making the books themselves commercially more attractive.”

Aside from the rich and interesting information it provides about all kinds of books, this book also incorporates a price guide for some collectible books, and even a built-in bookmark with the conversion rate of pounds to dollars. They’re probably worth more today, though, and in Euro, because this book was published in 2001.


The back of the book also showcases a useful glossary of book terms you can throw around so you can sound like those stuffy old gentlemen collecting books!

I got this book for aboutP300 (~$6) , more than I’d usually spend on an impulse buy, but it’s one of the best book purchases I’ve made this year :) Definitely worth every peso.

***
My copy: hardcover with dustjacket

My rating: 5/5 stars

A Journey to the Commonwealth of Letters

Aside from my cousin Dianne, another person who got me hooked on books is my friend Tintin. Back in college, way before my book-hoarding days, I was entranced by the rows and rows of books on her shelf in her room, and she always let me borrow great books (of course, even then, I returned them already covered in protective plastic).

with Tin at the Half Blood Prince launch in ’05

Last year, while I was trying in vain to recruit her to BookMooch, she told me she was dying to find a copy of this book called Silverlock by John Myers Myers. I was curious, and ended up adding it to my wishlist because it sounded so intriguing. I totally forgot about it until Triccie put up a copy in her inventory during a special promo for local moochers last February.

Tin wanted to borrow it the last time I saw her, so I decided to bump it up on my TBR so I could lend it to her.

I started the book around Black Saturday; I read about a third then I wasn’t able to read all last week because I was working on a book project. Then I read another third during Dianne’s graduation, and read the remaining hundred-plus pages for the 24-hour read-a-thon.

Silverlock (book #59 for 2009) , written in 1949, is an epic fantasy about A. Clarence Shandon, an American who goes off for a vacation but ends up getting shipwrecked, and finds himself in the Commonwealth of Letters, a land that challenges everything he has ever known, populated by literary characters.

Shandon is dubbed as Silverlock by his guide to the Commonwealth, Golias (who embodies Orpheus, and perhaps some other storytelling characters) due to a streak of white in his black hair.

Shandon (occasionally with Golias, but more because of his own pigheadedness) gets into a lot of adventures and misadventures in his journey throughout the Commonwealth: he is turned into a pig by Circe, gets chased down by a pack of cannibals, gets involved in a love triangle because of Puck’s tomfoolery, joins Robin Hood and his merry men, celebrates with Beowulf over his triumph with Grendel, has tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare; and steals Huck Finn’s raft; and runs into Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Hester from The Scarlet Letter, and Rosalind and Orlando from As You Like It.

It’s hard to explain the plot exactly, because that would take the fun out of it. Just think of it as a richer, expanded version of Shrek with more obscure characters or a more outlandish Jasper Fforde novel — more fantasy than mystery. And with a lot of songs in between.

For the most part, it was a good read, but I ranked it my least favorite in the read-a-thon, because I was pressured to finish the book. I’m not a hardcore fantasy fan, and the story was a bit more fantastic for my taste, so it was more difficult for me to get through it. Unless books with made-up maps and strange names are normal fare for you, the book is best read at leisure, because you’ll need your concentration to keep track of the characters while attempting to identify them, or you’ll get as lost as Shandon is in this strange world.

I like the message the book leaves with the reader, about the transforming power of books and reading. Shandon Silverlock certainly doesn’t start out as hero material — cowardly, rude, chauvinistic, lecherous, and even downright annoying. But as he goes through his journey in the Commonwealth, he picks up values from the literary ideals that he meets, and in the end, he becomes a hero that deserves the title role in the story.

This is the sort of book, I think, that gets better with every reading, especially after you’ve read more literature that will allow you to identify other characters and references you weren’t able to identify before. I don’t think I even recognized a fourth of the characters discussed in the book, making succeeding readings a definite possibility. I think I’ll read this again in five years or so, to see where it takes me.

Meanwhile, I’m loaning it to Tintin later :)

***
My copy: 2005 Ace trade paperback, mooched from Triccie. I want the hardcover edition with the built-in companion.

My rating: 4/5 stars