Two O'Clock Eastern Wartime by John Dunning

First Edition
NF with NF Dust Jacket
Scribner, 2001


For me, it all began with John Dunning. My wife, who's a reference librarian, came home one day saying that she'd come across the name of a mystery writer who owned an antiquarian bookstore in Denver. We both grew up in Colorado and went to college in Denver, so we checked him out (and also checked out his book, Booked to Die).
Turned out he ran the Old Algonquin Bookstore in East Denver on Colfax, where his sleuthing protagonist also ran a shop. I'm not sure, but I think he moved his store to Cherry Creek for a while before shutting the doors in the nineties and taking up residence on the internet. I like to imagine that I have a book that came from his shop. When I lived in Denver, I was dating a girl who bought me a copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience (Peter Pauper Press - Mount Vernon) from the bookstore of which I am thinking.
Anyway, I read Dunning's mystery and was enthralled with the idea of collecting books. Oh cliche', oh cliche'. The plot, entailing bookscouting in Denver, reminded me so much of time spent in college browsing through the used bookstores, buying reader's copies for my library of cheap yet pompous titles, that I was instantly enthralled by the idea of turning all of those rotting coverless paperbacks into gleaming hardcover first editions. My wife wasn't too thrilled about the idea.
Back to Two O'Clock Eastern Wartime. I knew the book was out there, Dunning's major self-standing novel, and had passed up the opportunity to but it once when I saw it as a later edition. A few months ago, though, I was at the Eugene Public Library booksale and saw it in the aisle and soon had my own copy for one dollar.
I took it home and set in on the shelf, then went to the library to check out a reader's copy. Anyone else do this? I feel cheap and strange every time I check out a book that I have a copy of at home. It's shameful, and it's downright pathetic when you own something you can't read for fear of damaging it and you can't find a reader's copy. Anyone got a copy of Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High I can buy for under fifteen dollars?
Dunning's novel was entertaining. I'd just read Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos and Chibon's The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay and was glad to read more on the WWII theme. Also, my wife's current writing project had brought me to read Steinbeck's The Moon is Down and I was happy to come across a reference to something I'd probably be hard-pressed to have a conversation about in another book; in his novel, Dunning talks about the controversy created by a play based on Steinbeck's novella about an occupied Dutch town.
Book's like Cavalier and Clay and Two O'Clock Eastern Wartime tell you about specific fields, such as old-time radio broadcasting and the comic book industry, in addition to giving you a riveting plot line and interesting characters in compounded conflicts. The private interests of Dunning and Chabon wrap the stories in rich and provocative detail. Case in point, Dunning's knowledge about the book-selling industry not only entertained me for a few days, but also created a habit that's eaten up weeks of my time so far.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

First Edition, First Printing
Cream colored jacket with dark red endpapers
As New
Bloomsbury, 2004


This is the second first-edition book that I bought with an intent to collect. I saw it on the shelf at J. Michaels and knew I'd purchase it before the week was out.
I'd just recently read it, passing through the pages for pleasure, knowing that I'd probably not have more than two or three conversations about the book in my lifetime, but who knows . . . . The story was intriguing and the illustrations by Portia Rosenberg were a nice addition. Like in the Heritage Press reprints, the drawings were fun to come by now and then.
While reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I realized that there is something that often marks an author's first book. What is at the front of my mind with Clarke's novel is the wandering plot prevalent in the second half. After I'd been drawn in by the book's premise and characters, Clarke took me on a meandering trail of events not necessarily in line with the main conflict between Strange, Norrell, and the Fairy gentleman. But here I'm getting too wrapped up in criticism. I really enjoyed this book as escapist literature and would love to read a sequel. Oh, I did check out the collection of stories by Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, but couldn't get through the collection. Perhaps they were too secondary to the main plot, perhaps I'm not as into magic arts and fairies and such as I was when I read Clarke's first book. But I think I'd like to revisit Jonathan Strange and Stephen and the rest. Besides, a hit sequel would only add to the value of the first edition I already own.
On a side note, I'm moving this week and am dreading the inevitable boxing and unboxing of all my books. I've got four ceiling-to-floor bookcases stuffed with mostly reader's copies of titles I can't bring myself to sell until I've got a better edition. I am envisioning myself bringing in fifteen or more heavy boxes, with my new neighbor looking on and asking, "You think you've got enough stuff?" and me replying, "These are just my books." To that his brow furrows, he forgets he watering the petunias and soaks his shoes as he thinks, "Man, that guy's got a problem."
And I do.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

First Edition, First Printing
As New
Alfred A. Knopf, 1989


This is the first first I ever bought with the intent to buy a first. I bought it at J. Michaels Books for $32 down from $40 because I had a coupon. I'd seen another first of Geek Love at Smith Family Bookstore for $35, but it was a remainder and the dust jacket was faded from the washed orange to a dirty yellow on the binding, as I've heard often happens with this book..
When I saw it at J. Michaels four months ago, I knew I was about to embark on a new and expensive hobby.
I've bought at least five copies of Geek Love and am in the market for another reader's copy. It's a book I keep around to gift to people, most of whom are visiting the Pacific Northwest. My reasons for gifting this particular book are probably a little snobby: I like people to know that I read edgy books, and revel in the thought that they are reading it for the first time and thinking, "Man, that guy's weird."
Who have I given it to thus far. . . . The first copy I owned I gave to an old friend's girlfriend. I hadn't seen this friend for years. One day I got an e-mail from him saying he'd be in Portland for a few days, so I wrote him back and said I'd meet him there. He was coming to town to attend a sex seminar with his girlfriend, who wrote for playgirl magazine. Thinking it rude to meet someone and note have a gift, I grabbed my copy of Geek Love as I ran out the door to catch the Amtrak to Portland.
Coincidentally, she loved the book. Two years later when my wife and I visited the same couple in New York, my friend's girlfriend returned the favor by gifting my wife and I with a vibrating cock ring. I suppose she wanted us glean something about her from her gift as well.
Others who have received the book are my friend Aaron, who didn't read it because his wife had just given birth and he thought it would give him nightmares; John, who I shouldn't have gifted it to for reasons I don't want to go into; and most recently, my friend Chuck from Denver, who just visited a few weeks ago with his chain-smoking, cat-loving social-worker girlfriend.
Now I have an edition that I'll never give away, and I can be reminded of these people and more people in the future every time I see the book on my shelf.