Northampton, where Old is new to us

Our three-week trip concluded, we returned home to host some guests from Spain for a few days, and now we've had some time to breathe and get caught up to date on our bookstore travels in the Northeast. Up first, our trip to Old Book Store in Northampton, Massachusetts.

We'd been to Old Book Store before. Maybe a few times in the 10 months we lived in Northampton. I remember being disappointed on a Monday or two (yes, more than once -- silly, I know) when I would take a walk from my terrible job and head toward Old Book Store, only to be disappointed to find it closed.

As we made our way to Old Book Store on our first stop in Northampton on this trip -- our first time in Northampton as "Get a Spine" -- I had a good feeling about what we might find.

After three minutes inside, my feelings were justified, 10 times over.

As we have mentioned time and time again, we collect a certain style of Riverside Editions from Houghton Mifflin. We collect them both for their look and the quality of the intros and other materials they include with each work. We've had a hard time determining exactly how many and what novels were published in this style, but using the various lists in the back of each one we add, we at least knew a The Last of the Mohicans was out there somewhere. We figured it would be hard to find, especially since we were looking for it...

Yet there it was at Old Book Store, right before my eyes. I couldn't believe it, I told Deborah she wouldn't believe it... yet it was true. And in probably the best condition of any Riverside we have collected. It's practically new. Just awesome.

After that, anything else we left with was gravy, and we found some pretty good gravy at that, including two more Riversides, a Modern Library Grapes of Wrath and one of Deborah's favorites, Love in the Time of Cholera, published in the year it first appeared in print in English by the original English-language publisher (we think it's not a first edition, but a later run that year).

As we checked out, we introduced ourselves to the store's owner (as we normally do), and proceeded to have a very nice conversation with Grant Walz about his bookstore, and the future of used-book collecting and used-book store owners. We can't say it was an optimistic conversation about the future, but we can say that it was a really enjoyable meeting, and we were glad to meet Mr. Walz, and at the very least, maybe give him a little more hope about the future than he may have started the day with.

Books added: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper; The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by George Meredith; Six Eighteenth-Century Plays

Publishers (in same order): Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Random House Modern Library; Alfred A. Knopf; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions

Years: 1958; 1943; 1988; 1971; 1963

Where obtained: Old Book Store

Price: $12.00 total

'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