Reading Copy Book Blog

Here are the most expensive books sold through AbeBooks in April. The most expensive one is not a book at all but a set of IT journals. Who’d have thought that some journals about software could fetch such a high price? A little further investigation revealed that there are quite a few sets of IT journals spanning the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for sale on the site at some very impressive prices.

1. Software: Practice and Experience - $9,652. Volumes 1-34 (1971-2004) from this respected software journal
2. A Description of the East by Richard Pococke - $9,460. A key travel book on the Eastern Mediterranean, Pococke traveled extensively in the 1730s
3. Poems by Wilfred Owen - $8,713. A 1920 first edition with a long manuscript from Owen’s former lecturer
4. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by Colin Matthew - $7,500. A huge set of 60 books with 50,113 biographical articles on key British historical figures
5. Ulysses by James Joyce - $6,500. A pristine 1935 edition - #74 of 1500 copies signed by illustrator Henri Matisse
6. American Life by Ronald Reagan - $6,325. Presented in an oak case, a first edition – one of 2000 copies signed by the late president
7. The Querist by George Berkeley - $6,220. First London edition from 1936, this book has theories on politics and finance originally published in 1735-37. 
8. New Discovery of a Vast Country in America by Louis Hennepin - $6000. A description of the Americas from 1698, including the first published view of Niagara Falls
9. Tibetan Painted Scrolls by Giuseppe Tucci - $4,800. A three-volume set from 1949 on Tibetan history and culture
10. Illustrated Letters by Madame de Sevigne - $4,777. Madame de Sivigne, a French aristocrat (1626-1696), was a famed letter writer – one of 420 copies with original illustrations by Henry Lemarié

Abebooks recently announced a partnership with LibraryThing. If you don’t know what LibraryThing is, it is an online service to help people catalog their books - with a social twist. You can tag, review and rate the books. LibraryThing compares your catalog, tags and ratings to other users to come up with some interesting lists, statistics and recommendations.

I’ve been using Delicious Library for a number of years since it catalogs all my media (CDs, books, DVDs, records), but LibraryThing may be interesting enough to perhaps pull me away from that piece of eye candy, and it is handy to have web access to your library whenever you’re away from home.

It’s a free sign-up, so try it out. It can be quite addictive as it starts to generate recommendations and you check out the libraries of people with similar books to yours.