AbeBooks’ bestselling signed books of the year were…. some rather decent books.
1. The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
2.The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
3.The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
4. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
5. Swamplandia! By Karen Russell
6. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
7. A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
8. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
9. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
10. One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
I love stories like this. People can sometimes go out of their way to be so lovely. This must have made that one reader’s whole month.
In 2006, a young reader who loved the book To Kill a Mockingbird wrote a letter to 85-year-old author Harper Lee, in the hopes she would send him back a signed photo of herself.
While Lee did not grant the photo request, she did respond, personally, in handwriting, and offered him life advice, instead:
“06/07/06
Dear Jeremy
I don’t have a picture of myself, so please accept these few lines:
As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, “I’m probably no better than you, but I’m certainly your equal.”
(Signed, ‘Harper Lee’)”
What an incredibly lucky fan. Not only did she give him some beautiful, sound advice, but frankly, Harper Lee’s signature usually costs quite a bit.
via the fantastic Letters of Note
On his fourth time being shortlisted for the prize, Julian Barnes has been announced the winner of this year’s £50,000 Man Booker award. The Sense of an Ending, Barnes’ first novel in six years, is the story of a seemingly ordinary man who, when revisiting his past in later life, discovers that the memories he holds are less than perfect.
The award was handed out this evening in at London’s Guildhall where Barnes beat out fellow finalists including Carol Birch, Patrick deWitt, Esi Edugyan, Stephen Kelman, and A.D. Miller for the honour.
If you’re looking for a hot buy I expect that the signed copies of The Sense of an Ending that I’m seeing online should be selling like hotcakes over night.
From legendary comedians such as Groucho Marx (a true bibliophile) to performers from the past decade like Simon Pegg, literature penned by stars of stand-up, sit-coms and comedy movies is plentiful. AbeBooks has autobiographies, diaries, memoirs, books for children and novels – all signed.
I think out of all these books I would most like to read Born Standing Up by Steve Martin. He was featured quite prominently in With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant and he is not your average Hollywood superstar. He also appears in Billy by Pamela Stephenson because Billy Connolly and Martin share an ability to make the banjo like few others.
When you need to master something, it pays to read a book and that includes the fine art of book collecting. These guides to filling your bookshelves cover everything from understanding rare book jargon to caring for your books and identifying first editions.
Start with John Carter’s vital ABC for Book Collectors and browse through another 20 recommendations.
What are your bookshelves like? Are they many or few? Are they stuffed to the gills, messy, overlapping and stacked willy-nilly? Or are they tasteful and sparse, organized by color, genre, book size, publication date? Are your tastes narrow and clearly defined, or do they run the gamut from romance to rarities?
To those of us who love books and love reading, our bookshelves can be among the most prized and personal areas of our home. Now, you’re invited into the home of one of the AbeBooks staff to snoop at one of her bookshelves, see what she has, learn what she loves and perhaps find an idea for your next read.
(okay, it’s me – don’t mind my hat and wig collection in the background.)
Yesterday I found a neat post featuring doodles from famous authors like Franz Kafka, Kurt Vonnegut, and Allen Ginsberg.
The one by Syliva Plath where she is being chased by a hot-dog and a marshmallow is my personal favourite. You can check them out on Flavorwire
I also checked out AbeBooks and found some neat inscriptions with doodles:
Top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.com
1. Give Me Liberty! An American History by Eric Foner
2. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
6. Nothing But The Truth by Avi
7. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: Ancient, Medieval and Non-European Art
by Helen Gardner
8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
9. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
10. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
Top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.co.uk
1. The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho
2. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
3. A Very Touching Book by Jan Hindman
4. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
5. Street Child by Berlie Doherty
6. Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer
7. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
8. The Shack by William P. Young
9. Small Giants by Bo Burlingham
10. Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
AbeBooks top 10 bestselling signed books
1. The Empty Family by Colm Toibin
2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
3. Legend of a Suicide by David Vann
4. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
5. Nemesis by Philip Roth
6. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
7. Caribou Island by David Vann
8. Decision Points by George W Bush
9. Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
10. Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
David Vann’s star is rising. The San Francisco-based author, who is really from Alaska, continues to be described as one of America’s brightest writing talents after a handful of books. Signed copies of his books are now shifting very quickly off the digital bookshelves of AbeBooks.
His just-released novel is called Caribou Island, set in Alaska, and it follows the mainly autobiographical Legend of a Suicide from 2008, which apparently sold well in the UK and France. Legend of a Suicide hails from a rather grim legacy. Vann’s father killed himself with a gun while talking on the telephone to his second wife. Shortly before the suicide, Vann’s father had asked his son if he would spend a year with him in an Alaskan wilderness cabin. The author, then a high school teenager, said no. In Legend of a Suicide, Vann imagines what would have happened if he had said yes – a very personal alternative reality.
The Times Literary Supplement describes comparisons to Cormac McCarthy as “fully justified.” The New York Times ran a major profile of him in mid-January, penned by Charles McGrath. No-one has a bad word to say about his writing and he seems to have won over the world’s major book reviewers.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about Vann as the year goes on.
Really I am surprised the book doesn’t have large blank swaths in the middle, with dozens of blank white pages, where Keith only knows where he was based on tour routes found on Wikipedia. But anyway Keith’s new book “Life” was just published, and despite Mick describing it as something similar but not quite as nice as whiny it has been selling well and even beating out Glenn Beck.
Yesterday Richards appeared at the Waterstone’s in Piccadilly Circus where he signed 450 copies of his new book. It seems that a couple of our booksellers were on hand and you can now benefit; signed copies of Life are now available on AbeBooks.
AbeBooks.co.uk Top 10 bestsellers for August 2010
1. Vietnam by Spencer C. Tucker
2. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
3. The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal
4. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
5. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
6. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
7. The Golden Warrior, the Story of Harold and William by Hope Muntz
8. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
9. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
10. The Wild Muir by John Muir
The AbeBooks.com top 10 bestsellers for August 2010
1. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
6. Workplace Success by Lenora Peters Gant
7. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
9. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
10. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
Top 10 bestselling signed books on AbeBooks for August 2010
1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
2. The Passage by Justin Cronin
3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
4. I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson
5. Room by Emma Donoghue
6. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
7. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
8. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
9. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
10. Star Island by Carl Hiaasen
The bestselling books, and bestselling signed books on AbeBooks for the month of July.
People seem to be going nuts for David Mitchell. The man’s hot right now.
AbeBooks.com Bestsellers
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
5. Galapagos: Discovery on Darwin’s Island by David W. Steadman
6. Night by Elie Wiesel
7. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
8. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
9. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
AbeBooks.co.uk Bestsellers
1. World Cup by German Aczel
2. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
3. Whale Done!: The Power of Positive Relationships by Kenneth Blanchard
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson
6. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
7. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
8. Whatever Happened to Worship by A.W. Tozer
9. The World’s Great Golf Courses by Michael Hobbs
10. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan
AbeBooks Signed Books Bestsellers
1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
2. The Passage by Justin Cronin
3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
4. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
5. Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
6. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
7. Faithful Place by Tana French
8. Think of a Number by John Verdon
9. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
10. The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle by Patrick Rothfuss
“For Fred & Pip, with my / very best wishes- / Arthur / Concord, 25 October ‘56”
For example this copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s Reach for Tomorrow was signed and given to rocket scientist Frederick C. Durant III and his wife by Clarke.
As it turns out we are not the only ones who find this interesting. Richard Hyfler over at Forbes also enjoyed this little piece. After seeing it he published a post mentioning our feature and an association copy in his collection.
My only genuine association copy may be the poet Charles Reznikoff’s Family Chronicle (shown at top), inscribed by the author of the introduction, Milton (“Milt” here) Hindus, to the poet, David Ignatow. The attraction here was Hindus. Don’t bother looking him up on Wikipedia. The short entry on him was deleted in 2008, according to the Wikipedia archive deletionpedia, because “When this article was created, the writer did not include enough information to establish the significance of the subject.”
Do you have any great association copies in your collection? I’d love to hear about them.
Top 10 bestselling signed books for AbeBooks in May 2010
1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
2. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
3. Solar by Ian McEwan
4. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
5. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
6. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
7. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley
8. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
9. The Book of Counted Sorrows by Dean Koontz
10. The Whispers by John Connolly
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