Viva Firenze (Massachusetts) -- Pt. I

One of our favorite little towns is Florence, Mass. We lived equidistant from the centers of Florence and Northampton, and while Northampton is not a burgeoning metropolis by any means, it is much bigger than Florence, making Florence always seem like the place to go for some peace and quiet.

One of the places we really love in Florence is Bookends, a two-story (first floor and basement) used-book store on the main drag. We'd done some Christmas shopping there in the past, but hadn't ever really shopped for ourselves there, and now that we were "official," we had to make Bookends a stop on our trip.

The fiction section is on the first floor, so as we normally do, we split up and started from one end of the alphabet. A bonus for us about Bookends is that they have a nice little kids room right next to the fiction section, in which we could let our daughter play semi-unattended while we browsed.

As I worked my way backward from Z, I made it all the way to the M's before finding anything I wanted to hang onto, and that was a 1936 copy of Gone with the Wind. Our copy is not a first edition, though it is a later printing in the year of its original publication, and by the original publisher. All things considered, it's in pretty good shape, and looks like it has earned it's 76 years of existence. I've not ever read it, and haven't seen the movie all the way through, but something just seemed appropriate about putting it on my list of "to reads" now that we're living south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I also found us another Riverside Edition, The Rise of Silas Lapham by William D. Howells, and grabbed a Modern Library copy of  The Best American Humorous Short Stories, because we all need a little comedy in our lives. 

Deborah did the rest our damage at Bookends, grabbing some Austen, Conrad, Dickens, Fitzgerald, London, a Riverside Edition of Conrad's Lord Jim, and more.

We also had the chance to talk to Bookends' owner, Grey Angell, which you can read more about -- as well as see the remainder of our "Books added" (stupid Blogger tag limits!) in Part II here...

Books added: Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald; White Fang by Jack London; Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad; The Rise of Silas Lapham by William D. Howells; The Best American Humorous Short Stories ed. by Alexander Jessup

Publishers (in same order): Scribners; The MacMillan Company; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Random House Modern Library

Years: 1972; 1909; 1958; 1957; 1943

Where obtained: Bookends

Price: $20.00

Sometimes no plan is the best plan

Our first stop on our trip to Central New York wasn't a planned one. On Tuesday, we were in Oneonta, NY -- home to Hartwick College, the State University of New York at Oneonta, and the James Fenimore Cooper Society, as well as being the former home of the National Soccer Hall of Fame -- to have a little lunch before hitting a bookstore we had planned to visit.

But our parking spot in downtown Oneonta just happened to be in front of a bookstore called "The Rose and Laurel Bookshop." So after a bite to eat, we hit The Rose and Laurel before hitting our known destination.

While our daughter latched on pretty quickly to a Steinbeck novel, Deborah and I collected seven works to take home with us. One of them Deborah talks more about here, while the other six were a random collection chosen for different reasons:

• Eichenberg! As we've mentioned many times, we have started to be on the lookout for Fritz Eichenberg-illustrated/wood-engraved works, and we found an awesome copy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, which is an all-time favorite. This edition appears to date from about 1940 or so.
• a visually striking and well-preserved 1887 edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, with "an introductory account of the work by the author."
• another Riverside Edition for our collection, A Modern Instance by William Howells, published in 1957.
• a 1950 Modern Library edition of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, which is a definite upgrade over our current copy. I've not read Brothers yet, but I am definitely looking forward to reading more Dostoyevsky.
• George Orwell's Animal Farm, another personal favorite, likely a book club hardcover edition from 1946, the year after it first appeared in print.
• A copy of David James Duncan's The River Why, which Deborah picked up in order to return a loaned copy back to the person who gave it to her.

So, all in all, this was a very successful stop that we hadn't planned on making. Count us as fans of The Rose and Laurel Bookshop!

Books added: Crime and Punishment  by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe; A Modern Instance by William D. Howells; The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Animal Farm by George Orwell; The River Why by David James Duncan

Publishers (in same order): The Heritage Press; Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Houghton Mifflin Company Riverside Editions; Random House Modern Library; Harcourt, Brace and Company; Bantam Books 

Years: 1940(?); 1887; 1957; 1950; 1946; 1984

Where obtained: The Rose and Laurel Bookshop

Price: $30.00 for the six

Cincinnati is definitely a Riverside city

As we approached The Ohio Book Store, we gazed up at a five-story brick building, with bookshelves visible through the windows all the way. Kristian looked at me and asked "Are you ready?"

Boasting a collection of more than 350,000 books, the Ohio Book Store had us full of anticipation as we walked in the door. There was bound to be something here for us. It turns out there was a whole stack of somethings, starting at the bottom floor in the paperback classics section. I had a feeling that we might find some Riverside Editions -- it just looked like the kind of place that would have some. 

But the first thing I laid my hands on was a 1962 Signet Classic of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. Score! I actually got chills. We had collected all but Mohicans in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales in the Signet Classic printing and we really didn't expect to come across Mohicans any time soon, as it is the most popular of that series. The set has really interesting, colorful artwork on the cover -- it has a sort of stained-glass like appearance that we find very attractive. We're so excited to have all five now. Thanks Ohio Book Store! 

Next, seconds later, Kristian did indeed put his finger on a Riverside Edition -- The Octopus by Frank Norris. The fun thing about collecting this particular style of Riverside Editions -- simply because we like the look of the publication -- is that it means we get our hands on books and authors we have sometimes never heard of, thus broadening our literary horizons. (The Octopus was apparently first published in 1901 and was originally intended to be the first part in a trilogy that Norris never finished. It is about the conflict between California wheat growers and the Southern Pacific Railroad. We'll definitely read it one day.) 

Well, that find opened the floodgates and we found Riverside after Riverside, snagging six more for our collection -- the most we've ever found in one place. They included Ten Greek Plays, Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy, The American by Henry James, The Egoist by George Meredith, and Minor Classics of Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Volume 1. Sadly, we can only increase our total count of Riverside Editions by five -- we'd already found Minor Classics Volume I, but we thought we had Volume II. Since we couldn't remember we had to get it to be safe. Oh well. This version is in much better shape, so we'll replace the other. Our total count is up to 24. 

There are lots of great things about the Ohio Book Store -- many of which Kristian points out in his post -- but one very cool aspect is the fact that they have a bindery on the bottom floor of the store. They do amazing restorations of old books and have been in operation since 1940. As torch bearers for paper-paged, physical books, we are thrilled that places like the Ohio Book Store and its Bindery are going strong -- restoring and repairing the old books that we love and hope to keep around for a long time to come. We may have a couple to send their way...

Books added: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper; The Octopus by Frank Norris; Ten Greek Plays edited by L.R. Lind; The Egoist by George Meredith; Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy; The American by Henry James; Minor Classics of Nineteenth Century Fiction, Volume I edited by William E. Buckler

Publishers (in same order):  New American Library, Signet Classics; Houghton Mifflin Company, Riverside Editions

Years: 1962; 1958; 1957; 1958; 1965; 1962; 1967

Where obtained: Ohio Book Store, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Price: $21.00 for all ($2.00 - $4.00 a book)