AbeBooks' Reading Copy

A fantastic profile on Collectors Weekly about Theodor Geisel’s AKA Dr. Seuss’s secret hat collection. It comes as little surprise, when one really stops to think about it, that Geisel might have a thing for hats. I remember reading The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (which just celebrated its 75th anniversary) as a child and being dazzled by the elaborate and ornate hats revealed as the ones before were swept away. And obviously The Cat in the Hat‘s own chapeau is nothing to sneeze at. But I love the extent to which is fanciful fetish apparently extended:

When the late author, the alter ego of Theodor Seuss Geisel, was penning his beloved Beginner Books for Random House in the 1960s, he’d have his editor in chief, Michael Frith, over to his house, where they’d work until the wee hours. And when they’d get stuck, according to “Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel” by Judith and Neil Morgan, Geisel would open a secret door to a closet filled with hundreds of hats. Then, he and Frith would each pick a different hat, perhaps a fez, or a sombrero, or maybe an authentic Baroque Czech helmet or a plastic toy viking helmet with horns. They’d sit on the floor and stare at each other in these until the right words came to them.

And they were behind a secret false door in his home! What a marvellous thing to know. It’s no wonder he was so able to tap into the joy and mystery that appeals to well to children. His collection of hats was apparently quite extensive, containing hundreds of hats.. And as reported in the article, many of them can now be viewed as part of an exhibition that is traveling across the U.S.A.

Read the full article for more information.

Today I came across this collection of magazines from 1930s France called Police Magazine. We have quite a number of them for sale on the site, happily with images to peruse. From what I can tell, the publication ran from 1931 until 1937. I’ve found little information about it, but I think the magazine was a crime-fiction rag with stories, some continued week after week. I’ve included a selection of the covers below, along with a link to the listings. If anybody has more information about this publication, we’d love to know it and flesh this out – please leave a comment!

Presented annually since 1955 the Hugo Awards are among the most prestigious prizes given to science fiction authors (I, myself, would give the Hugo’s equal billing with The Nebula awards); and are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (aka “Worldcon”) and are presented in several categories which include, but are not limited to:

Best Novel
- 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Blackout by Mira Grant
- Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Redshirts by John Scalzi
- Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

Best Novelette
- The Boy Who Cast No Shadow by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
- Fade To White by Catherynne M. Valente
- The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan
- In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire
- Rat-Catcher by Seanan McGuire

Best Graphic Story
- Grandville Bête Noire by Bryan Talbot
- Locke Key: Clockworks Volume 5 by Joe Hill
- Saga, Volume One by Brian K. Vaughn
- Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia by Howard Tayler
- Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run by Paul Cornell

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
- Zen Cho
- Max Gladstone
- Mur Lafferty
- Stina Leicht
- Chuck Wendig

A full list of all 2013 Hugo Award nominees can be found here, and you can check out past winners of the Hugo Award here.

Modern science is rarely dull and there’s usually a fascinating story behind each new discovery. This was the formula that fuelled the Scientific Book Club for more than five decades.

With a new title released each month, the Scientific Book Club covered a broad range of topics from geology to marine life and fossil fuels to extra sensory perception. Put some science on your shelf. This fabulous cover (pictured at top) is just one of the many titles featured.

March’s most expensive sales on AbeBooks reveals the broad scope of collectible books. The list of top 10 sales includes a guest book but it’s no ordinary guest book. The book belonged to the Castello Bar from the Castle Schloss Mondsee near Salzburg in Austria, and it sold for $11,900.

Castle Schloss Mondsee, now an upmarket hotel, began life as a Benedictine abbey and was founded in 748. This guest book is packed with famous signatures, including Burt Lancaster, Greta Garbo, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The book belonged to an Austrian aristocrat, Countess Micheline Almeida (1911-2000), whose family used to own the property and she clearly hosted the rich and famous when they visited the area.

Bound in red leather, the guest book  even features some bars of music for the song, The Hills are Alive, from The Sound of Music, which was filmed in and around Salzburg in 1964. The book has been signed by the movie’s director Robert Wise, and the stars, Plummer and Andrews, and dated April and May 1964.

Other signatures in the guest book include the Prince of Liechtenstein Franz Josef II, actor Tony Curtis, socialite Brooke Astor, boxer Gene Tunney, actress Natalie Wood, actor Jack Lemmon, poet W. H. Auden, comedian Peter Sellers, British politician Harold Wilson, fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (who added a sketch), opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa, motor racing driver Niki Lauda, the Aga Khan, pianist Arthur Rubinstein, Looney Tunes artist Chuck Jones, many opera and ballet performers, numerous European aristocrats and other notable people.

The Almeida family sold the property in 1985 and it became a hotel in 2001. The guest book was sold by longtime AbeBooks seller Kurt Gippert from Chicago.

See the list.

This is a great post from Flavorwire. They rounded up 10 examples of letters of admiration and appreciation written to famous authors…from other famous authors!

Some of the examples include a 1976 letter from Ray Bradbury to Robert Heinlein (“…will continue to be grateful for the help you offered when I was so poor & needful!”), an 1858 correspondence from Charles Dickens to George Eliot (“…The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humour and the pathos of those stories, I have never seen the like of; and they have impressed me in a manner that I should find it very difficult to describe to you, if I had the impertinence to try…”), and one from 1937 that Virginia Woolf wrote to Olaf Stapledon (“…ometimes it seems to me that you are grasping ideas that I have tried to express, much more fumblingly, in fiction.”), among several others.

But my favorite has to be this letter written in 1964, by a then 16-year-old George R.R. Martin, to comics legend Stan Lee.

Dear Stan and Don,

After receiving and reading my subscription copies of FF #32 and AVENGERS #9, I have finally come to the decision to have both mounted in bronze and set on a pedestal in the center of my living room. Although the F.F. is “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine”, I must admit that on this occasion AVENGERS #9 was slightly the better of the two. This is not to say that F.F wasn’t up to par, but rather that the Avengers was–er–breathtaking, shall we say? What a story! It was beyond words; the fast-paced action, solid characterization, and that terrific ending all gave it that extra oomph and catapulted into the great class. Stan, old boy, you can put another notch in your pen for this masterpiece….

George R.R. Martin, 36 E. First St.
Bayonne, N.J. 07002

Love it! If this kind of written correspondence of yesterday is your cup of tea, be sure to check out our Literary Letters feature. And if you are a fan of mutual admiration of well-known folks, learn about Association Copies – books inscribed by famous people to other famous people.

Each year The Alcuin Society (who are a fantastic association of bibliophiles out of Vancouver) give out their Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada, which are awarded for various categories.  The winning books will be presented at exhibitions across the country and at the Frankfurt and Leipzig Book Fairs, and at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo in conjunction with the Tokyo International Book Fair. 

Some of the winners included:
Doors in the Air by David Weale - Children (tie)
Everyone Eats by Julia Kuo – Children (tie)
Handfuls of Bone by Monica Kidd – Poetry
Love and the Mess We’re In by Stephen Marche - Fiction
Little Black Lies: Corporate & Political Spin in the Global War for Oil by Jeff Gailus - Non-fiction (tie)
The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude by Andrew Nikiforuk – Non-fiction (tie)

If you’ve never heard the name Frank Frazetta, that doesn’t mean you’ve never seen his work. In the latter 20th century, Frazetta was a prolific artist in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and comic art. As comfortable with swords, sorcery and unnaturally curvaceous space heroines as he was with caricature and parody, his work also made a splash in Mad Magazine.

Read more about Frazetta and see his work.

Among the staff here at AbeBooks we’re always gushing over great cover art when we see it.  We like bizarre covers, classic covers, minimalist covers, and we have even bought books for the cover alone; which, perhaps, is why I love this project so much (and thanks to GalleyCat for pointing it out for me)…

Artist Sharm Murugiah has taken nine Quentin Tarantino films drawn up what their covers might have looked like if they were Penguin paperbacks… I love it.

I’m loving this idea over on kickstarter (and fortunately, it has already met its initial fundraising effort!): Literary Lots. It’s simple – find a city (in this case, Cleveland, OH). Gather artists and designers and volunteers and together, transform vacant city lots into beautiful, fun literary spaces for kids.

Imagine making a Secret Garden, with nooks and crannies tucked away. Or have a wardrobe door opening into the snowy wonderland of Narnia. Perhaps a giant chessboard, for Wizard Chess, a la Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

In their own words:

Literary Lots is a program that ‘brings books to life’ in vacant lots in Cleveland. Working with the Cleveland Public Libraries and LAND Studio, Literary Lots will transform 2 to 4 vacant lots adjacent to libraries into six-week summer program spots for children in inner-city Cleveland. Between June and August 2013, local artists will use themes from specific children’s books to re-create places, concepts, or adventures from the book, creating a magical and educational space to engage local youth in art and culture. Working with other local non-profits and cultural institutions, the artists will bring engaging programming to youth right in their neighborhoods. The result: a transformative experience that combines creative land re-use, artist engagement, youth education and urban renewal.

It seems what books are represented/created will depend in part upon being granted copyright permissions. I hope they have little in the way of hurdles around that, as it’s such a wonderful idea for unused space. I would have been bonkers for something like that as a kid.

Learn more about Literary Lots (or donate, if you’re inclined)!