1booksforreading
I am about to finish reading about life of Alexander the Great from Plutarch and will probably start on an easy and entertaining novel by Fredric Brown (I don't know which one yet).
What are you reading now or what I you planning on reading soon?
What are you reading now or what I you planning on reading soon?
2Bernarrd
Right now I am reading the manuscript (uncut) of "Islandia" by Austin Tappan Wright. I downloaded it in 7 parts from Harvard Library. It is a bit of a challenge because the manuscript is a carbon copy and it has a number of typo's. Things like fo for of and misspelled words, and things added in and crossed out. And a few things I think should have been corrected and were not. I probably need a copy of the finished book to follow along with, but I am not sure where my copy (actually multiple copies) is just now. I also downloaded a manuscript of "The History of Islandia" as by a character from the book. So I have my reading for awhile now. I am also reading "Fugitive Anne" by Mrs. Campbell Praed, but I got bogged down, and will have to pick that up again later. Before that I read "Yellow Death" by Uel Key, which is an Occult Detective title I had looked for for several years.
3rshart3
Currently reading A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn; and Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson. Verifying my credentials as an anglophile, a history buff, and a Moomin lover (her adult novels are quite good too, though bleaker). I'm usually reading a novel of some kind, a nonfiction, and a collection of essays or letters. Sometime soon I'll dip into the essay volumes of the Yale Johnson again.
4booksforreading
>2 Bernarrd:
>3 rshart3:
Fascinating! I am not familiar with ANY of the books you mention. Makes me feel uneducated. I will have to make a note of your books and try to learn more about them in the future.
>2 Bernarrd:
It is very interesting to read a book from a manuscript. What a great idea! This can easily influence a perception of a novel in an unexpected way. I have noticed that characters of the same novel look and act differently in my imagination when I read the same work in different languages. It is easy to imagine that reading a book from the original manuscript would do the same to our perception.
>3 rshart3:
Fascinating! I am not familiar with ANY of the books you mention. Makes me feel uneducated. I will have to make a note of your books and try to learn more about them in the future.
>2 Bernarrd:
It is very interesting to read a book from a manuscript. What a great idea! This can easily influence a perception of a novel in an unexpected way. I have noticed that characters of the same novel look and act differently in my imagination when I read the same work in different languages. It is easy to imagine that reading a book from the original manuscript would do the same to our perception.
5Bernarrd
>4 booksforreading: My main interest in reading the manuscript is that the manuscript was cut considerably before it was published in book form. Wright wrote this over a considerable time period and no one was aware that it existed before his death. He died in a car accident and his wife and daughter found a large amount of material he had written on his imaginary country. Not only had he written this long novel, but he also wrote a history of the country as if written by one of his characters, and apparently he even wrote some supposed Islandian literature mentioned in the novel and the history. Sadly some of his manuscripts disappeared after his publisher displayed them at a book fair. They apparently disappeared in transit back to the publisher after the book fair. Some things like this manuscript still survive in a typed carbon copy, but other items are gone forever. Some maps he drew are also gone, although some still survive in photocopies, etc. I found that some material could be downloaded and decided to do so and give it a read. This was typed by his wife and daughter from his handwritten manuscripts (which are now missing).
6booksforreading
>5 Bernarrd:
How lucky that his wife and daughter typed a copy!
Thank you for sharing this information. I hope that at some point in the future the manuscripts that disappeared will resurface somewhere.
How lucky that his wife and daughter typed a copy!
Thank you for sharing this information. I hope that at some point in the future the manuscripts that disappeared will resurface somewhere.
7Glacierman
Getting ready to read Ramsey Campbell's The Decorations from Alpenhouse Apparitions (2005), a Christmas horror story.
And shortly thereafter, W. A. Dwiggins' Syrillion and six other tales of Athalinthia told in the English language, (2022).
Mr. Dwiggins (1880-1956) was a noted book designer, among other talents, and designed many books for Alfred A. Knopf over the years. He also had several type designs under his belt, most notably Electra and Caledonia.
The Athalinthia fables have never been published in their entirety until this edition.
If I'm not distracted, I am planning on following those two with The Hole in the Wall Ranch for a change of pace.
And shortly thereafter, W. A. Dwiggins' Syrillion and six other tales of Athalinthia told in the English language, (2022).
Mr. Dwiggins (1880-1956) was a noted book designer, among other talents, and designed many books for Alfred A. Knopf over the years. He also had several type designs under his belt, most notably Electra and Caledonia.
The Athalinthia fables have never been published in their entirety until this edition.
If I'm not distracted, I am planning on following those two with The Hole in the Wall Ranch for a change of pace.
8Keeline
I have two projects which will have me looking at changes in texts from manuscript to published book and seeing how the books were edited over time.
The first of these, in terms of due date, is a presentation to the Popular Culture Association national conference. In it I will show relationships between juvenile series books and periodicals. A good number of stories in series were first published in magazines, either slick or pulp, and earlier forms like dime novels and story papers. Some series volumes were serialized in newspapers after the book publication. There are also some interesting examples of characters appearing in multiple media. Of course the periodical and book versions can vary in important ways, including titles, character names, illustrations, and story length. These come down to the preferences and requirements of each editor. In terms of length some serials are longer and edited down. Other times the books are expanded (perhaps padded) from the magazine versions.
A chapter on the forthcoming Beyond Nancy Drew will cover the production and evolution of the Trixie Belden and similar series from Whitman and Golden Press. We have photocopies of the writers' guidelines used in the 1970s when the series production ramped up for the paperback releases. We also have several examples of typed and edited manuscripts from Trixie Belden and some related series. As the books were reissued in different formats and with different illustrations, sometimes edits were made to the texts as well to reflect contemporary style and interests. Curiously, the Random House reprints confused readers of the paperbacks because the texts went back to the deluxe format of 1965, effectively reversing some of the edits that were familiar to them.
For these manuscripts I have photographed the pages and put them into PDFs which can let me make comparisons with PDFs of the books from different editions. It's a rather manual process but this sort of thing has not been possible much for the field of juvenile series books with so few manuscripts accessible. The Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection has some manuscript material but usually not the ones most sought — the early original-text Nancy Drew and other contributions by Mildred Wirt Benson. Most of the material which is available covers the revised-text era.
These will be calls on my spare time in the next few months.
James
The first of these, in terms of due date, is a presentation to the Popular Culture Association national conference. In it I will show relationships between juvenile series books and periodicals. A good number of stories in series were first published in magazines, either slick or pulp, and earlier forms like dime novels and story papers. Some series volumes were serialized in newspapers after the book publication. There are also some interesting examples of characters appearing in multiple media. Of course the periodical and book versions can vary in important ways, including titles, character names, illustrations, and story length. These come down to the preferences and requirements of each editor. In terms of length some serials are longer and edited down. Other times the books are expanded (perhaps padded) from the magazine versions.
A chapter on the forthcoming Beyond Nancy Drew will cover the production and evolution of the Trixie Belden and similar series from Whitman and Golden Press. We have photocopies of the writers' guidelines used in the 1970s when the series production ramped up for the paperback releases. We also have several examples of typed and edited manuscripts from Trixie Belden and some related series. As the books were reissued in different formats and with different illustrations, sometimes edits were made to the texts as well to reflect contemporary style and interests. Curiously, the Random House reprints confused readers of the paperbacks because the texts went back to the deluxe format of 1965, effectively reversing some of the edits that were familiar to them.
For these manuscripts I have photographed the pages and put them into PDFs which can let me make comparisons with PDFs of the books from different editions. It's a rather manual process but this sort of thing has not been possible much for the field of juvenile series books with so few manuscripts accessible. The Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection has some manuscript material but usually not the ones most sought — the early original-text Nancy Drew and other contributions by Mildred Wirt Benson. Most of the material which is available covers the revised-text era.
These will be calls on my spare time in the next few months.
James
9booksforreading
>8 Keeline:
A research like this can take years. Have you been doing this for a long time?
>7 Glacierman:
I passed on Athalinthia's kickstarter. Maybe I will get to regret it.
A research like this can take years. Have you been doing this for a long time?
>7 Glacierman:
I passed on Athalinthia's kickstarter. Maybe I will get to regret it.
10Keeline
>9 booksforreading:
In terms of series books, I have been researching them for about 35 years. I've been gathering materials for these two research presentations for several of those. This includes getting some Trixie Belden and similar manuscript material in 2012 and photographing them a few years ago.
Likewise, for the comparison of periodical stories with book editions, I have been gathering page images for many years. I felt it was time to prepare a presentation that would showcase the interesting examples, both typical and unusual. The PCA conference (San Antonio in April) presentations are limited to 15-20 minutes with slides so there's a restriction on the depth I can cover. But I am including information on the serials as I find them in the draft of the Series Book Encyclopedia that I have been working on for the past 30 or so years.
There was even one Trixie Belden story that was reprinted in a serial (probably abridged) in a magazine. I have the page images from that so an analysis of it might benefit both projects.
James
In terms of series books, I have been researching them for about 35 years. I've been gathering materials for these two research presentations for several of those. This includes getting some Trixie Belden and similar manuscript material in 2012 and photographing them a few years ago.
Likewise, for the comparison of periodical stories with book editions, I have been gathering page images for many years. I felt it was time to prepare a presentation that would showcase the interesting examples, both typical and unusual. The PCA conference (San Antonio in April) presentations are limited to 15-20 minutes with slides so there's a restriction on the depth I can cover. But I am including information on the serials as I find them in the draft of the Series Book Encyclopedia that I have been working on for the past 30 or so years.
There was even one Trixie Belden story that was reprinted in a serial (probably abridged) in a magazine. I have the page images from that so an analysis of it might benefit both projects.
James
11booksforreading
>10 Keeline:
You have impressive experience. I am also glad to see that the PCA conference returns to in-person events. Good luck with your presentations!
You have impressive experience. I am also glad to see that the PCA conference returns to in-person events. Good luck with your presentations!
12booksforreading
In the last days of 2022, I read Knock Three-One-Two by Fredric Brown and, finally, Inferno by Dante - for the first time in my life. Proudly feel like I accomplished something. :)
Happy New Year to all!
Wish you all good health and lots of reading enjoyment!
Happy New Year to all!
Wish you all good health and lots of reading enjoyment!
13Glacierman
Now reading The Decorations by Ramsey Campbell. A Christmas horror story. Yes, it's after Christmas. I'm a little slow off the mark, that's all.
14booksforreading
My reading accomplishments last months form a weird mixture!
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Who Goes There? – John W. Campbell, Jr.
The Hummingbird Comes Home – Woolrich
The Angle of Dazzle – Henry David Thoreau St Brigid Press
Introduction by Zelazny to "Collected Stories of P. K. Dick"
A Week’s Conversation on Plurality of Worlds - De Fontenelle; with added “Mr. Addison’s Defence on the Newtonian Philosophy”
Nine Princes in Amber – Zelazny (again!?)
Dune Messiah, introduction and afterword in the Centipede Press edition
"Georg Philipp Telemann as an Artistic Personality" – Auguest Wenzinger
Madame Bovary has been waiting for a few weeks for me to continue past the first 2 chapters. I will probably do this soon. There is also a nice-looking big fantasy book that is waiting to be read: "The Last Giant: Transgression (The Lindensaga Book 1) by J. R. (Johanna and Richard) Hardesty.
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Who Goes There? – John W. Campbell, Jr.
The Hummingbird Comes Home – Woolrich
The Angle of Dazzle – Henry David Thoreau St Brigid Press
Introduction by Zelazny to "Collected Stories of P. K. Dick"
A Week’s Conversation on Plurality of Worlds - De Fontenelle; with added “Mr. Addison’s Defence on the Newtonian Philosophy”
Nine Princes in Amber – Zelazny (again!?)
Dune Messiah, introduction and afterword in the Centipede Press edition
"Georg Philipp Telemann as an Artistic Personality" – Auguest Wenzinger
Madame Bovary has been waiting for a few weeks for me to continue past the first 2 chapters. I will probably do this soon. There is also a nice-looking big fantasy book that is waiting to be read: "The Last Giant: Transgression (The Lindensaga Book 1) by J. R. (Johanna and Richard) Hardesty.
15booksforreading
From mid-June to now:
I Married a Dead Man – Woolrich (Centipede Press edition)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – Agatha Christie
The Hunter Out of Time – Gardner F. Fox (original paperback)
A Murder is Announced – Agatha Christie (June 28, 2023)
Passengers (story) – Christopher Harman (from Blood Wood and Other Stories by Harman, Sarob Press)
Dune Messiah – Frank Herbert (Centipede Press edition)
Trouble in a Teacup (story) – Fredric Brown (from a Haffner Press collection)
On a Hill of Roses (story) – Josef Grabinsky (from Centipede Press collection)
Studies about Telemann in “The Day of Judgement” oratorio LP box
Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa – Haruki Murakami
Three-Corpse Parlay (story) – Fredric Brown (from Haffner Press collection)
Space Episode (story) – Leslie Perri (from "Future is Female" by Library of America)
Music reviews by Virgil Thomson (from Library of America)
Ivanhoe – Walter Scott (Limited Editions Club) - really enjoyed this one!
What are you reading now or what have your read recently?
I hope that summer is going very well for all of you!!
I Married a Dead Man – Woolrich (Centipede Press edition)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – Agatha Christie
The Hunter Out of Time – Gardner F. Fox (original paperback)
A Murder is Announced – Agatha Christie (June 28, 2023)
Passengers (story) – Christopher Harman (from Blood Wood and Other Stories by Harman, Sarob Press)
Dune Messiah – Frank Herbert (Centipede Press edition)
Trouble in a Teacup (story) – Fredric Brown (from a Haffner Press collection)
On a Hill of Roses (story) – Josef Grabinsky (from Centipede Press collection)
Studies about Telemann in “The Day of Judgement” oratorio LP box
Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa – Haruki Murakami
Three-Corpse Parlay (story) – Fredric Brown (from Haffner Press collection)
Space Episode (story) – Leslie Perri (from "Future is Female" by Library of America)
Music reviews by Virgil Thomson (from Library of America)
Ivanhoe – Walter Scott (Limited Editions Club) - really enjoyed this one!
What are you reading now or what have your read recently?
I hope that summer is going very well for all of you!!
16PatrickMurtha
>15 booksforreading: Nice selection!
New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.
I don’t have enough $$$ to be a real collector, but I am very interested in the “object qualities” of the books that I obtain, so I hope I won’t be shown the door. 🙂
I’ll give a brief description of my situation:
These days my reading is about evenly split between ebooks and hard copies (I don’t do audiobooks). I much prefer physical books, but living here in Mexico, it can be convenient to have a book on my iPad in seconds after purchase, particularly if the price is right. My Scribd subscription gives me access to LOTS of ebooks I want to read for one monthly fee. And of course many difficult-to-find or pricey older books are available as ebooks through Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, the Open Library (although who knows what’s going on there), HathiTrust, etc. I use every service I know about.
All that said, I order about 12-20 used books per month from various sources and have them sent to my mail receiving service in Houston. My monthly fee there includes $60 of FedEx shipping (no rollover), which I apply once a month to having my purchases sent to Mexico. The mail receiving service re-boxes all of the books in one carton. It took me a while to work out this system, but now it works pretty smoothly.
So pick-up day at the FedEx office here in Tlaxcala is always a highlight of my month. There is a slight uncertainty factor involved, because online sellers invariably either OVER or UNDER-describe condition (some “Goods” are only “Acceptable”, some “Acceptables” are actually “Very Good”). But even if a book is in rough condition, and I sometimes order them that way deliberately to save money, I can have it nicely re-bound here for (drum roll) $6.00.
I used to be more picky about condition, ex-libs, and so on, but I have completely gotten over that. After all, it’s the text that counts. And many sorts of books that I am interested in can ONLY be found affordably as ex-libs.
New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.
I don’t have enough $$$ to be a real collector, but I am very interested in the “object qualities” of the books that I obtain, so I hope I won’t be shown the door. 🙂
I’ll give a brief description of my situation:
These days my reading is about evenly split between ebooks and hard copies (I don’t do audiobooks). I much prefer physical books, but living here in Mexico, it can be convenient to have a book on my iPad in seconds after purchase, particularly if the price is right. My Scribd subscription gives me access to LOTS of ebooks I want to read for one monthly fee. And of course many difficult-to-find or pricey older books are available as ebooks through Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, the Open Library (although who knows what’s going on there), HathiTrust, etc. I use every service I know about.
All that said, I order about 12-20 used books per month from various sources and have them sent to my mail receiving service in Houston. My monthly fee there includes $60 of FedEx shipping (no rollover), which I apply once a month to having my purchases sent to Mexico. The mail receiving service re-boxes all of the books in one carton. It took me a while to work out this system, but now it works pretty smoothly.
So pick-up day at the FedEx office here in Tlaxcala is always a highlight of my month. There is a slight uncertainty factor involved, because online sellers invariably either OVER or UNDER-describe condition (some “Goods” are only “Acceptable”, some “Acceptables” are actually “Very Good”). But even if a book is in rough condition, and I sometimes order them that way deliberately to save money, I can have it nicely re-bound here for (drum roll) $6.00.
I used to be more picky about condition, ex-libs, and so on, but I have completely gotten over that. After all, it’s the text that counts. And many sorts of books that I am interested in can ONLY be found affordably as ex-libs.
17booksforreading
>16 PatrickMurtha:
Welcome to the group!
Your range of interests is quite amazing, and it seems that you have lived and worked in many good places in the world.
I am not sure who "real collector" is, but if one is passionate about books and reading, a collection/library is acquired quickly, especially at the rate of 12-20 books per month. It sounds like your library is suited to your interests exactly, and, with only $6 rebound per book, your library is not only interesting, but a good-looking one, too. :)
Welcome to the group!
Your range of interests is quite amazing, and it seems that you have lived and worked in many good places in the world.
I am not sure who "real collector" is, but if one is passionate about books and reading, a collection/library is acquired quickly, especially at the rate of 12-20 books per month. It sounds like your library is suited to your interests exactly, and, with only $6 rebound per book, your library is not only interesting, but a good-looking one, too. :)
18PatrickMurtha
>17 booksforreading: Thank you very kindly! I am very glad that rebinding is available so inexpensively in Mexico, as it enables me to “save” books. For example, my copy of the old Penguin Australia edition of Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life - an important version, since the text is absolutely complete - was falling apart, but now is preserved nicely.
19PatrickMurtha
Anyone with a serious interest in literature and literary history should get a total kick out of Richard Altick’s 1950 study The Scholar Adventurers. Immensely informative and entertaining look at the byways of literary scholarship.
One of the delights of the Altick volume is a 13-page section of Bibliographic Notes. Any non-fiction book that contains especially good (end or foot)notes, (preferably annotated) bibliography, bibliographic notes or essay, etc, has my everlasting gratitude, because I really will comb through those for other materials I want to follow up on. Books are findable most of the time; journal articles are a bear (American colloquial for “difficult situation”). Fortunately I have JSTOR access through being a Yale alumni, that helps with some articles. I would like to collect old scholarly journals and such, but my financial resources are not unlimited. 😏
I am certain that I will order at least a dozen books mentioned in the Altick notes, not all immediately but eventually. Two other books I have recently found a wealth of follow-up in are Lewis Mumford’s The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (which has an impressive annotated Bibliography) and Rodman W. Paul’s Mining Frontiers of the Far West 1848-1880 (killer endnotes).
One of the delights of the Altick volume is a 13-page section of Bibliographic Notes. Any non-fiction book that contains especially good (end or foot)notes, (preferably annotated) bibliography, bibliographic notes or essay, etc, has my everlasting gratitude, because I really will comb through those for other materials I want to follow up on. Books are findable most of the time; journal articles are a bear (American colloquial for “difficult situation”). Fortunately I have JSTOR access through being a Yale alumni, that helps with some articles. I would like to collect old scholarly journals and such, but my financial resources are not unlimited. 😏
I am certain that I will order at least a dozen books mentioned in the Altick notes, not all immediately but eventually. Two other books I have recently found a wealth of follow-up in are Lewis Mumford’s The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (which has an impressive annotated Bibliography) and Rodman W. Paul’s Mining Frontiers of the Far West 1848-1880 (killer endnotes).
20booksforreading
>19 PatrickMurtha:
Thank you for the great suggestions! I will look at the books your recommend.
Thank you for the great suggestions! I will look at the books your recommend.
21PatrickMurtha
>20 booksforreading: Anyone in this group would especially enjoy The Scholar Adventurers, I think.
22booksforreading
Too much work lately! Reading has slowed down significantly.
Recent books:
Glitz – Elmore Leonard (Library of America)
Plutarch Lives, Caesar (Limited Editions Club)
Tokyo Doll – John McPartland (Centipede Press)
A Spindle Splintered - Alix S. Harrow (Subterranean Press)
I am not sure I can recommend the last two.
Tokyo Doll took some effort from me to continue reading, while it was supposed to be an easy entertainment. The book is, of course, outdated in many regards, not least of which is its attitude to women, but book's literary merits do not overweight its negatives.
"A Spindle Splintered" has a nice premise and is cleverly written; however, its frequent and unnecessary use of profanity when it could have been easily avoided without losing its desired effect, and several references to main characters "getting high" detract the book's value for me to the point that I would not recommend it to my teenage children (the intended readers of the novella).
What's up with constant profanity in the recent literary works? Is this supposed to be the encouraged thinking of the new generation? Does it just sound cool?
I am not above using choice words in VERY select circumstances, but is such language supposed to be every-day's norm for a conversation in the modern culture?
Recent books:
Glitz – Elmore Leonard (Library of America)
Plutarch Lives, Caesar (Limited Editions Club)
Tokyo Doll – John McPartland (Centipede Press)
A Spindle Splintered - Alix S. Harrow (Subterranean Press)
I am not sure I can recommend the last two.
Tokyo Doll took some effort from me to continue reading, while it was supposed to be an easy entertainment. The book is, of course, outdated in many regards, not least of which is its attitude to women, but book's literary merits do not overweight its negatives.
"A Spindle Splintered" has a nice premise and is cleverly written; however, its frequent and unnecessary use of profanity when it could have been easily avoided without losing its desired effect, and several references to main characters "getting high" detract the book's value for me to the point that I would not recommend it to my teenage children (the intended readers of the novella).
What's up with constant profanity in the recent literary works? Is this supposed to be the encouraged thinking of the new generation? Does it just sound cool?
I am not above using choice words in VERY select circumstances, but is such language supposed to be every-day's norm for a conversation in the modern culture?
23Glacierman
Just started reading Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Evans. An English classic, it's been in print since it was published by Faber in 1956. It deals with rural life in Suffolk, a way of life that has pretty much, by now, disappeared.
The edition I'm reading was published by Ploughman's Parrot Press in 1999. It is a limited edition and has the benefit of wonderful woodcut illustrations by several excellent artists.
The edition I'm reading was published by Ploughman's Parrot Press in 1999. It is a limited edition and has the benefit of wonderful woodcut illustrations by several excellent artists.
24booksforreading
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I hope you find joys in your reading over the holidays! :)
I hope you find joys in your reading over the holidays! :)
