'High Reading Entertainment -- at a Low Price!'

We had a to-do list a mile long on Friday that was going to take us over in the direction of McIntire Road, so we decided to pay a visit to the McIntire Road Book Exchange. We hadn't been in awhile and stuff is always moving there, so we hoped there might be something new for us.

It wasn't a life-altering experience, but we did find a couple of fun things to add to our library. We've mentioned that we have a thing for a particular type of Signet Classic Editions books -- namely because we like the style of artwork on the cover. Today we happened upon three such specimens: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels; and -- a particular favorite of Kristian's -- 1984 by George Orwell.

I also picked up a 1961 Dell paperback edition of Helen Keller's autobiography. Not fiction, but I was just last night reading the preface to Maria Montessori's book detailing her educational approach and she mentions Helen Keller as an inspiration. It seemed a happy coincidence to stumble upon it today.

The final thing we found was all Kristian's doing. He was digging through some boxes on the way out and came up with a tattered dust jacket for The Razor's Edge (one of my favorite novels).

On the cover appear two actors in black and white and some text stating "The famous novel from which the Darryl F. Zanuck production was made, starring Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power." Apparently this edition is promoting the film adaptation of this book. Kristian kept digging around, and eventually came up with the book itself. It was printed in 1946 by Triangle Books. The printing on the dust jacket reminds us a bit of the Modern Library Giants we've come across. The back cover is a marketing medium claiming "High Reading Entertainment -- at a Low Price!" I love it! And you can't beat free as a low price at the Book Exchange. The dust jacket is in pretty rough shape though, so we may have to make another visit to Ryan at Random Row for a plastic dust jacket cover -- or, even better, we should invest in some of these plastic covers ourselves for future tattered covers. 

Books added: The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham; 1984 by George Orwell; The Story of My Life by Helen Keller; The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels by Henry James; Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Publishers (in same order): Triangle Books; New American Library, Signet Classics; Dell Publishing; New American Library, Signet Classics

Years: 1946; 1961; 1961; 1962; 1963

Where obtained: McIntire Road Book Exchange

Price: Free

Run, Winston, run! Big Brother is watching...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about replacing a lost copy of George Orwell's 1984, which is one of my favorite novels. I think it's genius.

The copy I found then, at the McIntire Road Book Exchange, was a suitable placeholder while I search out a hardcover copy published sometime within the first decade of when it first appeared in print in 1949.

Back at the McIntire Road Book Exchange on Friday (Deborah tells the full story here), I took another step toward that goal by "upgrading" to a 1964 Signet Classic edition with a great cover. A silhouetted Winston Smith on the run from an evil, lurking giant face looking down on him. Big Brother is watching, indeed.

Tell Big Brother that I am looking for him

Somehow, somewhere, in some way, my copy of George Orwell's 1984 went missing in the last couple of years. It could have been all the moving around, I could have loaned it and forgotten to whom ... I'm not sure.

All I know is that -- because I consider 1984 to be one of the most important works of fiction ever written (lending credit to the theory that I loaned it to someone who hadn't read it) -- I have been looking for a replacement, and though not the one I ultimately desire, today I found a suitable, temporary substitute at the McIntire Rd. Book Exchange.

It's a Signet Classic edition, though a bit newer than the ones we sometimes collect, this one being actually published in 1984 as a "Commemorative 1984 Edition." So that's something interesting, at least. Oh, and this edition has a foreword written by Walter Cronkite. Talking "newspeak" with America's then-favorite newsman.

So that'll work for now, but what I really would like to find is a hardcover published sometime within a decade of when 1984 first appeared in print, in 1949.

On a different note, one thing that we've found McIntire Rd. to be very good for is anthologies, and since I am big fan of short story anthologies, I'm always looking for different collections. We found two such items today.

One is a bit more textbook-ish, titled "Ten Modern Masters" (1959) and featuring Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, Henry James, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Katherine Mansfield and Frank O'Connor. It does, however also contain A) an appendix --  "Stories for Comparison and Contrast" -- featuring the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Guy de Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling, Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway, and B) a final section of excerpts from journals, letters and essays of the authors. Score.

The other anthology is titled "The World's Best" (1950), edited by Whit Burnett, which as you might imagine, is a collection of work by authors from all over the globe, arranged by geographic region. Short stories, essays, biographies, poetry,  plays, and more comprise this near 1,200-page volume covering 105 authors (called the "105 Greatest Living Authors") and more than 20 countries. It's an intense collection, one we are thrilled to have added, and even more excited to start reading.

Books added: 1984, George Orwell (1984); "The World's Best", Whit Burnett, ed. (1950); "Ten Modern Masters", Robert Gorham Davis, ed. (1959)

Publishers (in same order):  New American Library, Signet Classic; The Dial Press; Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.

Years: see above

Where obtained: McIntire Rd. Book Exchange, Charlottesville, Va.

Price: Free!

Bookseller Review: McIntire Rd. Book Exchange

McIntire Road Book Exchange

611 McIntire Rd.

Charlottesville, VA

The McIntire Road Book Exchange is a walk-in bin located at the far end of the Recycling Center. A place to donate old books, and find new (old) ones. 

What we like: There is always the chance of making an excellent find as the contents of the bin are constantly changing. You really have to dig though -- through stuffed cardboard boxes, stacks on the floor, and haphazard shelving -- and that makes it all the more exciting.

What we don't like: It seems to be heavy on medical reference books and textbooks. 

Would we go again? Definitely. Everyday that people go there to drop off their recycling means the possibility of new books being added to the collection. We try and go every couple of weeks to see what is new.