Recent Acquisitions #23

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

The last of my three Alibris books arrived today. You have to wonder how much you're being overcharged for postage when you 'combine postage' yet all three books are sent separately. Eh.

This is of course the book I set out to buy: England Swings SF, edited by Judith Merril.

I'm trying to decide whether the reddish/brownish colour of the edges of the book block is deliberate or a sign of ageing. It is only an mmp, published way back in 1968, so you wouldn't expect it to age well. Judging by a spine crease, it's been read at least once. Judging by the crackling when I open it, it won't bear any hard reading without falling apart. In the front it's been priced in pencil at 1 shilling* and in the back someone's written, again in pencil, 16398. A date, maybe?



Contents:

Introduction by Judith Merril;
'The island' by Roger Jones;
'Ne deja vu pas' by Josephine Saxton;
'Signals' by John Calder;
'Saint 505' by John Clark;
'The singular quest of Martin Borg' by George Collyn;
'The first gorilla on the moon' by Bill Butler;
'Blastoff' by Kyril Bonfiglioli;
'You and me and the continuum' by J.G. Ballard;
'Who's in there with me?' by Daphne Castell;
'The squirrel cage' by Thomas M. Disch;
'Manscarer' by Keith Roberts;
'The total experience kick' by Charles Platt;
'The silver needle' by George Macbeth;
'The baked bean factory' by Michael Shuttleworth;
'The hall of machines' by Langdon Jones;
'The run' by Chris Priest;
'All the king's men' by B.J. Bayley;
'Still trajectories' by Brian W. Aldiss;
'Sun push' by Graham M. Hall;
'Report on a supermarket' by Michael Hamburger;
'Dr. Gelabius' by Hilary Bailey;
'The heat death of the universe' by P.A. Zoline;
'The mountain' by Michael Moorcock;
'Psychosmosis' by David J. Masson;
'The idea of entropy at Maenporth Beach' by Peter Redgrove;
'Same autumn in a different park' by Peter Tate
and
'The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considered as a downhill motor race' and 'Plan for the assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy' by J.G. Ballard.

Who are these people? Most of the names are unfamiliar. Mind you, that doesn't mean much, coming from someone who can remember half a plot and a bit of a character, but never titles or authors' names. Ahem. But a heck of a lot of stories crammed into a tightly-fonted book. Is fonted a word?

*At least, it looks like 1 shilling to me. But as it's a US edition and I bought it from a US bookshop, that would mean it's crossed the Atlantic at least twice. Hmm.

Of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', and Others

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

Some of you may recall that I purchased a copy of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (for 50p) last year, then promptly lost it. Well, the other night, husband came into the room, announced he was going to sit down and read his book, and promptly dropped into his armchair. As the tone he used indicated this was One of His Jokes, I grabbed at the book. Yes, the missing Bradbury.

He claims he found it upstairs. Uh huh.

As we now have two copies, one will go to the library at his place of employment. I decided to keep the 50p copy as it has a much more handsome cover than the brand-new one. Lucky old library, eh?

While preparing to move the washstand back into the living room (it was moved into his studio to make room for the Christmas tree) I spotted that he was using one of my recent acquisitions to keep his pots of enamel paint off the washstand's surface. Ten out of ten for actually caring about the finish, but what's he doing with my book?

Eh.

I'm not sure this book even made it into a recent acquisitions post, so I'm going to list it here:

Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody (with William Hoffer).

Not a bleeding coaster, either. *sniff*