Old Books
I did a meme not long ago and one of the questions in the meme was: The Oldest Book on your Shelf. I interpreted it to mean, the oldest book UNread on your shelf. That would be Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Even that isn't totally unread, I did read about 250 pages and set it down. I do plan to do more in it.
When I read others blogs doing that meme and realized they wanted to know the "oldest book you own" I began to look around. Unfortunately I don't have any books from when I was very young. Nor do I have any books I bought for my kids when they were very young (like Winnie the Pooh).. so.. that leaves me with: the boxed set of The DragonLance first trilogy. (see below) You can't read it but the set of 3 mass paperbacks cost 9.95... Nine nighty-five! Heh, you aren't ever going to see that price again for three books!!
I can no longer read mass paperbacks due to my bad eyes so I have since purchased these in hardback when they were released just a few years ago.
About the same time I received the trade paperbacks of The Sword of Shannara series. These are quite thick books and were 6.95 and 7.95 each even back then. But again.. they are pretty old. I think the high price was because they were rather large trade paperbacks and do have a lot of artwork in them. My youngest son gave these two sets of books to me for a Christmas present and Birthday present, so needless to say.. I keep them no matter how brown they will get!
One thing about the Shannara books.. it's rare to find a book with artwork inside the book... especially if it's an adult book. It seems we are paying more and getting less these days. Nothing really new in that, I guess we should be glad that the kids books still have art work in them.
I wish I had the old Winnie the Pooh books I had gotten for my kids, or even to know what happened to them. But I have no memory at all as to what may have happened to them.
For reasons I can't even fathom I do remember an old Pinocchio book I had of my own, and again.. I don't know what happened to it, and I'm not sure why this particular book stays in my head. I did find this picture on the web of the exact book though.. thought that was pretty neat to find! This was one of those books that was also filled with art work.
( Illustrated by: Frederick Richardson 1862 - 1937)
posted by DesLily | 7:46 AM
7 Comments:
"it's rare to find a book with artwork inside the book... especially if it's an adult book."
Very true, and I wish it wasn't. Adults deserve artwork too! I love me some illustrations and I know I'm not alone.
I love old books! There's something so special about them. In fact, I cherish books with yellowed pages :p It shows that they've been loved. Guess what I scored on Bookmooch? An old hardback copy of The Sword of Shannara signed by Terry Brooks! Can you believe that? lol.
Nymeth: yeah, if anything as we get old we loose some of our ability to "see" what we are reading.. we adults NEED the artwork!!
Chris: OMG!!! I wonder if you can find a way to see if the signature is authentic?!! That would be WONDERFUL if it is!!!
chris: I forgot... this means you are going to start "yet another series?"
I have that very same edition of The Sword of Shannara, illustrations and all. I must get around to reading some Terry Brooks as I feel sure I would like him. I don't have any books from my childhood either. My mother was a great one for throwing out what she thought we were too old for. I shudder to think of the gems that that went in the bin. A lovely Alice in Wonderland for a start... a big book full of beautiful illustrations. Perhaps I should have a search for it like you did with Pinnochio.
Cath: all I remember is that the pooh books and the original star wars books were on my oldest sons shelves in his room when i divorced and moved away.. after that I don't know squat!
Wow! I have that same set of Dragonlance books... slipcase and all. I've read Dragons of Autumn Twilight so many times that the spine is almost totally white and the book is twice as thick as it used to be. About 10-times more beat-up that the the two books... Those books have so many memories for me. The Legends books are great too.
BTW: Have you read any Jack Vance Dying Earth or Fritz Leiber Lankhmar books? I'm totally hooked on Vance... and making my way through Leiber now...
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