I ♥ Used Books

Crazy-awesome haul at the B-CC used book sale today. I'm going to resist the urge I have to be obnoxious and list them all over in the sidebar, just to frustrate your viewing experience. instead, you may opt to check out the list (or not), read my comments about the list (or not), and follow the links to Amazon for each of them, save one (or not). Most of the Amazon links go to the edition of the book I purchased today... I'll note when that's not the case. (Or not.)

The list:

1. George Will, Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball: I generally don't like George Will... he's a little to pompous for me. But occassionally folks surprise me with their (excuse the pun) Out-of-Left-Field talent for writing well outside their established talent areas. I'm hoping that this little find is along those lines. Amazon | Paperback | 1990, HarperPerennial.
2. Carl Sagan, Contact: I absolutely loved this book when I first read it in 1986. Back on the first paperback edition they were touting a movie version that undoubtedly got cancelled or severely postponed. I did love the movie that came out, though for entirely different reasons from the book (the two aren't all that similar). My old paperback version has dissappeared over the many years and many moves since, and I really wanted to have it in my collection again. Amazon | Paperback | 1997, Pocket.
3. Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper's Penguins: I loved this book when I was first exposed to it some time in grade school, I loved it when my family bought a reprint of it for me in the 1990's, and I love that I now have the edition I'm most familiar with in my possession - that being the 1964 Scholastic Books reprint. Amazon | Paperback | Published: 1964, Scholastic.
4. William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, Third Edition: I have a heavily annotated, thumbnailed and otherwise mutilated copy that was a source of support in dark, lonely all-nighter-type nights from latter high school days through graduate school. I have it somewhere... it disappeared somewhere during my last move. It's nice to have a copy at the ready once again. Amazon | Paperback | 1979, Macmillan.
5. Pan American Airlines, World Guide, 26th Edition: I remember seeing this book in bookstores back in the day. You know, when there still was a PanAm airline carrier. This edition, which I think was the last, came out in 1982, and features such wonderful references like Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the USSR, and a map of Israel that includes the Sinai. Crazy. Amazon | Hardcover | 1982, McGraw-Hill.
6. The New York Times, The White House Transcripts:
7. The Washington Post, Presidential Transcripts: In May 1974, dueling editions of the transcripts of the Nixon White House tapes appeared on bookstore shelves. Both of these volumes are essentially identical, down to the cover design. Both contain the transcripts of the Nixon Tapes, and both were published before the turbulent summer of 1974 and Nixon's resignation. NYT volume: Amazon | Paperack | 1974, Bantam. WaPo volume: Amazon | Paperback | 1974, Dell.
8. Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy: This was a total leap of faith. I have no idea what this book is about, just that it was written during World War II. Amazon | Hardcover | 1944, Vanguard.
9. James Gurney, Dinotopia: I missed out on the whole Dinotopia thing when it was going around in the early 90's. So I figured, for 100¢, I might as well give it a go now. Amazon | Paperback | 1992, Turner.
10. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany: Nothing like a little light springtime reading, eh? I found this book in the local Walden bookstore in Park City Mall during the summer of 1992 and read it voraciously over the next several months (yes, it took months, even at a voracious pace). The footnotes are a work of art. The whole thing is the most comprehensive view I've yet been exposed to about how the Third Reich operated as it was coming into, and while it was in, power My old copy is heavily thumbed, so I decided for a more durable replacement - this one a First Edition (albeit 20th printing). Amazon (to the 30th anniversary paperback) | Hardcover | 1960, Simon and Schuster.
11. Ellen Williams and Steve Radlauer, The Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York: How could you not want a book like this? It appears, mostly, to be an historical self-guided tour of various venues throughout the city that match the book's titular description. Haven't really delved into it, but it looks pretty good. Amazon | Hardcover | 2002, The Little Bookroom.
12. Harry A. Franck, The Japanese Empire: This is potentially my coolest find. It's a 1927 travelogue, including photos, of the stuff this guy saw in Japan well before Hirohito and the craziness that was to ensue in the next two decades. Franck was well known at the time for his other travel books, and this one appears to be as celebrated. Amazon | Hardcover | 1927, F. A. Owen.
13. William Manchester, The Death of a President: An astonishing, just-the-facts-ma'am chronology of the 120 hours surrounding the assassination of JFK. The author conducted several hundred interviews and has a ton of supporting documentation, maps and the like, and just relays a straightforward chronology of who was where and when. Nice. Amazon | Hardcover | 1967, Harper & Row.
14. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: AMS's reputation as an historian is not unknown to me, and I've always wanted to read some of his books. So I went a little crazy and bought all of them. Well, not quite. Just three. Continuing on the JFK thing, this is his take on the Kennedy presidency. Amazon | Hardcover | 1965, Houghton Mifflin.
15. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order:
16. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal: Two thirds of the "Age of Roosevelt" trilogy, which accounts for the happenings of American politics from the end of the Hoover administration into the beginning of the recovery from the Depression. Missing was volume 3, The Politics of Upheaval. If only I had the complete set of the Houghton Mifflin volumes.... Amazon, Amazon | both Hardcover | 1957, 1958, both Houghton Mifflin.
17. John Gunther, Inside U.S.A.: Another guy fairly well known for his travelogues. He offers a complex and (from all i can tell thus far) complete look at America post-WW2. This was my take at the very first silent auction I've ever entered. Not bad, I say. Amazon | Hardcover | 1947 (1st ed), Harper.
18. Karol Kállay, Slovensko Slowakei Slovakia: A trilingual (Slovak, German, English) guidebook to the country of my forebears. Just a travel book with lots of pictures. Nothing outlandishly awesome. Except that it really makes me want to go there. It's not listed on Amazon, and I've only found one English description of the book for y'all. Publisher's Link, Alternate Link | Hardcover | 2000, Slovart.
19. Caroline Kennedy, editor, A Patriot's Handbook: I felt that this was an important book when it came out a couple of years ago... important documents and writings from our founding, along with a whole host of cultural and legal thinking and writing that has cropped up since. It's current through 2002, and 9/11 was part of what inspired her to put this thing together. I just couldn't bring myself to spend 3995¢ on what amounted to a Greatest Hits book. Now, 200¢, sure. Amazon | Hardcover | 2003, Hyperion.