About My Library
What I am engaged in adding to LibraryThing is what I loosely call my reference library, accumulated in the course of compiling my bibliographies and in connection with my interest in old time radio. I have a couple of bookcases full of paperback and hardcover mystery novels (a portion of what's accumulated since I sold my 25,000 volume collection in 1982), but am not planning to enter them. I also have over 6000 cassettes of old time radio, and hundreds of MP3 CDs of old time radio, but I don't plan to enter them either. Later (June 2008): All but the old time radio material is going to the Special Collections at the University of Minnesota (80 boxes so far); included in that shipment will be various material not listed here (for example: correspondence, boxes and boxes of used book dealer catalogues). The old time radio material will go to the university at a later date. [Later] 116 cartons of material have gone to the University, which completes the present donation. This means that essentially all material not related to radio is no longer in my possession, and what remains are material relating in some way to old time radio, plus a lot of new acquisitions (tagged post-donation), also mostly relating to old time radio in one way or other.
About Me
I am a retired organic chemist who founded The Armchair Detective, reviewed for the New York Times Book Review (Criminals at Large column, 1968-1971), EQMM (1983-1988), and various fanzines, edited 6 volumes of Best Detective Stories of the Year, and over some 35 years compiled a series of crime fiction bibliographies (each adding 5 years of additional coverage and new features), culminating with the forthcoming "Revised Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography 1749-2000". I am also a recovering book collector. Later (June 2008): Revised Crime Fiction IV is now out on CDROM from Locus Press, and a 2009 version (incorporating a few hundred pages of new/corrected information) is anticipated. Most of the information to be included in the 2009 version is on-line at www.crimefictioniv.com.
Location
White Bear Lake, Minnesota