#Book Collecting

[bookaddict24-7]

“To build up a library is to create a life. It's never just a random collection of books.”

― The House of Paper by Carlos María Domínguez

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Tom Gauld for The Guardian's Autumn Reading Special.

[unfayth]

I’ve been telling myself I should get another bookshelf for almost a year now

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.

Umberto Eco

[toomuchhorrorfiction]

[conservethis]

I pulled this book for a project at work and never have I jumped on the Abebooks website so fast to see if there was another copy of a book for sale as I did after I flipped through it.

I have been keeping aquariums for 30 years now, and this will be a great addition to my personal collection of Books About Fish!

“Shallows of the Sea” was printed by Lamar College’s “Blotter Press” in 1966. It contains many lovely silkscreened images of freshwater fish (including many species familiar to the aquarium trade).

I can’t wait for my copy to arrive in the mail!

[houghtonlib]

It's new exhibition season at Houghton! Now open for the fall semester:

Harvard by Hand: The Bow & Arrow Press at 45: Having served as a home for craft printing for the Harvard community since 1978, this exhibition showcases the history of Bow & Arrow as it begins a new phase of its life within Harvard Library.

Amy Lowell, Collector: The poet Amy Lowell led a parallel life as a major rare book and manuscript collector, one of few women then competing in the male-dominated collecting world. That collection, sustained in the century since her death by an endowment for new acquisitions, is a cornerstone of Houghton.

Artist, Neighbor, Citizen: Value in the Archive of Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová: Highlights from a newly acquired collection of more than 500 pieces of the work of Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová, Czech artist, storyteller, and accomplished printmaker.

The Foundations of Artificial Neural Networks: Scientific papers documenting the earliest work on artificial neural networks, which eventually led to the development of generative artificial intelligence.

[bookmaven]

The Oz books by L. Frank Baum [1 of 3]

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ by L. Frank Baum. (Chicago: Hill, 1900). Illustrated by W.W. Denslow.

THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ by L. Frank Baum. (Chicago: Reilly & Britton, 1904). Illustrated by John R. Neill.

OZMA OF OZ by L. Frank Baum. (Chicago: Reilly & Britton, 1907). Illustrated by John R. Neill.

DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ by L. Frank Baum. (Chicago Reilly & Britton, 1908). Illustrated by John R. Neill.

THE ROAD TO OZ by L. Frank Baum. (Chicago: Reilly & Britton, 1910). Illustrated by John R. Neill.

[thebeautifulbook]

Myths and Legend series. (Gresham. 1912-1924)

EGYPTIAN MYTH AND LEGEND by Donald A. Mackenzie

TEUTONIC MYTH AND LEGEND by Donald A. Mackenzie

CELTIC MYTH AND LEGEND: POETRY & ROMANCE by Charles Squire

INDIAN MYTH AND LEGEND by Donald A. Mackenzie

CLASSIC MYTH AND LEGEND by A.R. Hope Moncrieff

ROMANCE AND LEGEND OF CHIVALRY by A.R. Hope Moncrief

[deadpresidents]

Seeing as how you have so many books do you ever run into the problem of buying one and then realizing you already have it when you get home? I sometimes do that after visiting used book shops!

Yes, I've 100% had that issue! I remember finding myself interested in the life of Louis Mountbatten after watching one of the seasons of The Crown, so I decided to pick up some books about him whenever I was at a used bookstore over the next couple of months. I think I ended up buying four copies of the same book. To my credit, they all were different editions of the same book, so they looked different on the outside, but they were all the same book between the covers.

I did find a solution, however. It took a little bit of time and work, but it's ended up being very helpful (and helpful with saving a little money in the long run!). I moved to a different apartment during the pandemic, so while unpacking all of my books, I just created a document on my computer with every book's title, author, and ISBN number. Now, I take a minute or two to update it every single time I add a new book to my personal library, and have a copy of the list easily accessible from my iPhone whenever I'm in a bookstore and am unsure whether or not I already have a copy of a certain book. It's also an easy and useful way to catalogue your entire personal library and keep the information fresh. There are also various library or cataloguing apps that you can use for the same reason -- many of them allow you to just snap a photo of the barcode or ISBN of a book and the app autofills all of the information it. I've used a few of those in the past*, but the simple list with the title/author/ISBN number is all I need and it's definitely helped kept me from buying something more than once.

(*If I were to recommend an app for cataloguing your personal library, I'd suggest Bookpedia. It's the best of all of the apps I've tried, simple and straightforward, easy to use, and has a clean interface without any of the clutter and crap that some of the other apps have. There was a small, one-time fee when I first started using the app, but there were no hidden, in-app purchases or features that required more money. I've been using Bookpedia for at least five years, so I'm sure there are other, newer personal library apps out there that people would recommend, but Bookpedia has had every feature I've needed out of such an app.)

[twotwofroote]

Japanese Animorphs books

My insane friend (whom I love very much) just bought me the first 3 books in Japanese!!! 🤯

I had been talking about the Japanese versions while at dinner and how cool it would be to have them because 1) I live and work in Japan, 2) I study Japanese, and 3) I am freaking obsessed with Animorphs (obviously). She, unbeknownst to me, immediately bought them (literally under the table!!) while I was talking.

There was a lot of "SHUT UP", "STOP IT RIGHT NOW", and general crying when she handed them to me 😅. I'm beyond happy to have these in my growing collection and I look forward to using them to study!

Special features include:

Hand drawn covers

Bonus illustrations inside!! See high res pictures on the wikipedia here :

Flipbook animations in the corner (here's a video of me trying to show them off. It was really hard to do because it's "backwards" for me)

[bookaddict24-7]

"Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library."

--John Waters

(I will say, that in this economy, feel free to just treat this as a pretty quote.)

[moved2024]

Margaret Armstrong's How to Know the Wild Flowers

[unfayth]

Birthday gifts from a friend 💘

[talkingpiffle]

I didn't find any Sayers at the Antiquarian Book Fair this year, but did spot this John Donne first edition that Lord Peter might have wanted for his collection.

[eloquenthubak1982]

Vintage Cafe 🖤