SECOND-HAND, FIRST RATE

One of the great pleasures of bibliophilia is the discovery and acquisition of interesting or attractive second-hand books, be they bizarre titles perched on the fringes of literary endeavour or previously unknown editions of familiar favourites. Here are some I've added to the bookshelves recently.

A beautiful boxed paperback set of the Earthsea trilogy (before it outgrew that classification and became a pentalogy (?)). These are books to which I return time and again, and I think they represent the best in that hideously overcrowded genre of young adult science fantasy.

The first - I think - paperback edition of Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick. It's hard to choose between the sparkling gems that comprise the Vonnegut canon, but this exuberant, disturbing and hilarious farce is one of my favourites. I was once on the way to realising my ambition to have several different editions of each of his books, but the mundane requirements of space intervened. If the world had had any sense, it would have relinquished total global control to Mr. Vonnegut before his sad death in 2007. But then, if the world had had any sense, his writing would not have been necessary.

Finally, a book published in 2000 by No Exit Press, called Straight from the Fridge, Dad - a Dictionary of Hipster Slang. This little hardback contains such essential vocabulary as:

Dead presidents - meaning cash money, dollar bills

and

Hot-seat fodder - meaning criminal

as well as a plethora of terms describing such activivites as it is not appropriate to describe in a decent family blog.


Until next time, hep cats.


David