Jen’s Books

If you are in the Denver area this weekend you should really try to make it to the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Associations Annual Book and Paper Fair.  It is a booklover’s dream with a vast assortment of books in every price range.  You will also have an opportunity to see some very rare books.  I try to make it every year, but unfortunately family commitments are keeping me in Wyoming this weekend.  And keeping this post short.  Look at the link to get all the details on the fair.  Hope you enjoy!  And if you make it please come back and tell us all about it.

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Jen

Odd books are not a rarity in Jen’s Books.  We are fans of strange titles, interesting bindings and anything quirkly.  J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mr. Bliss certainly qualifies.  The edition we have was published in 1984 and is a fascimile of Tolkien’s own hand-writing and drawings on one side and a type-set version of the story in Italian on the other.  It is a very cute little book, that Tolkien wrote to entertain his own children.  Admitt4edly his handwriting is very difficult to read, but it is such a cute book and very different from the Lord of the Rings saga.

Mr. Bliss is a man with very tall hats and a  girabbit in his garden (you must read the book to find out more about a girabbit).  Mr. Bliss decides to buy a car and winds up with a yellow sports car with red wheels.  His adventures of trying to go visit his friends are the basis of the book.  Mr. Bliss style of driving might be part of the reason for his problems, but who really expects to get hijacked by some bears?

To Buy this book click HERE

I’ll be honest.  I’ve never read Anna Karenina.  I know it’s a classic; I know it’s an important piece of literature; I know it’s beloved by many.  I also know it is huge and dark and pretty depressing.  So, I haven’t read it.

I read a recent article in the Denver Post “Don’t let guilt spoil your unread classics”by David Milofsky in which he examines the feelings of inadequacy that many of well-read people feel when thinking about the classics.  Milofsky takes up a specific book 1001 Classics You Must Read Before You Die edited by Peter Boxall, as an example how most people have not read all the classics.  Boxall estimates that a reasonably well-read person will have read a 1/3 of those he considers “Must Read”.

Truthfully, I doubt that I’ve read that many.  There are just so many good books out there, how can one focus on reading the classics?  There are some such as the Iliad and Odyssey that I read in school and am grateful that I did.  However, I tried  Crime and Punishment at the tender age of 12 and I’m pretty sure that cemented my aversion to trying to read important Russian  novels.

So here is my question to the blog audience?  Do you read the classics?  Which are your favorites? Which can you just not manage?  And do you consider yourself any less well-read because you haven’t?

Classics and books such as 1001 Classics You Must Read Before You Die are a good source to go to if you want to broaden your reading list beyond the bestseller list and Oprah’s recommendations.  However, don’t let it turn you away from the books that might not make you any better about your intellect, but do make you enjoy reading.  I mean, Anna had affairs and jumped off a train (or so I’ve been told); that’s not a story that just grabs me.  No offense if you love Tolstoy.

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Jen’s Daughter

At initial glance the headline “Colorado book borrower must spend time in prison” leads you to believe that some library got a little over zealous with their collection of fines.  But in reading the full Denver Post article, one finds out that this guy stole over 1,400 books and DVDs from various Denver Metro Libraries and was selling them on Craigslist.  Police have managed to recover about 500 items, but the rest are gone.  The man was sentenced to 10 years in prison.  (http://www.denverpost.com/watercooler/ci_9826104)

I’ve never been able to understand the need to steal, but to steal from a library?!?  That’s especially unimaginable to me.  These are places whose purpose is to provide the public with free knowledge and you are stealing it from the public.  Unforgivable, some how more so since he was doing it only to make a profit.  Nothing more than a scam-artist.

Rest assured, though some of the books I sell are ex-library books, I did not steal them from the libraries.

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Jen

Just wondering if anyone else has the same trouble I do.   Summer hits and all of a sudden the books stacked in my reading list start looking a lot less interesting.  So I start another reading pile (I have many), some of Jen’s recommended reads this summer are…

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz - perhaps one of the few books involving potential mass murder that renews your faith in humanity.

Cheyenne Autumn by Mari Sandoz - Quite the page turner.  Rarely has a tragic story been told so well.

Fields and Pastures New: My First Year as a Country Vet by John Mccormack - Haven’t read yet, but looks like it will be a fun read and also a nice insight into another time (it is set in rural Alabama in the 1960’s)

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - How can a bookseller resist a book involving “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books”?

And for pure escapism I would go with any book by Clive Cussler. 

And Kir (book enterer extraordinaire) recommends

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer - Please don’t think of this as a vampire novel, it is simply one of the most well written stories I’ve read in forever.  Absolutely add this to your reading list.

Confessions of Georgia Nicolson Series by Louise Rennison - by the titles alone these should be a fun read.  Kir has Knocked Out by My Nunga Nungas on her list.  There are 8 total.

Also any book by R.A. Salvatore, he has a large number of great fantasy series out.

Let us know of any other must-read summer reads on your list.

Keep Reading and have a safe holiday weekend!

Jen

And they are GORGEOUS!  This past weekend during my trip to Denver, I managed to make it to the Clive Cussler Museum out in Arvada.  It wasn’t terribly convenient given that the museum is only open on Mondays and Tuesdays from the end of April to September.  But it is most definitely worth it.  The cars are great examples of the heyday of the automobile.  From a Stanley steamer to 1950’s muscle cars, this museum was one of the best automobile museums I’ve been to.  The layout was very nice and they had information on each car and even told you which books that certain cars had been featured in.  Unlike most museums each car was in absolutely pristine condition, they looked like they had just come off the lot (even the one that was being used as a chicken coop when Clive found it).  There are about 80 or so cars as my best guess.

There were the cars from Sahara, Dragon, Iceberg and other of Cussler’s classic Dirk Pitt novels.

So if you love Clive’s books and the hijinx that Dirk Pitt gets up to and if you are ever in Denver during the summer, take the time to head out to Arvada and see some of Cussler’s inspiration.  The museum website shows the cars, but they don’t do them justice.

Cost is $7 for adults, $5 for Senior and $3 for children under 12.  Hours 10-7 Monday and Tuesday, April 28th to September 25th this year.

http://cusslermuseum.com/

We are now featuring The American Cowboy by Will James on the website (www.jensbooks.com).  AND an added new feature is that you can now buy the featured book through PayPal directly from my website!!!!  We are looking into a shopping cart system, but it is unlikely that will happen very soon.

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Jen

Jen’s Books now blogs!  We aren’t sure what our topics will be yet, but to be sure they will be book related (mostly) and probably as random as the books we sell.

Not sure when the next post will be up, our IT wanna-be is still trying to figure out how this will work.

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Jen

The Denver Post has a great article where they interviewed two of the best used/antiquarian (don’t you dare say antique) booksellers in Denver - Don Gallagher of Gallagher Books and Robert W. Topp of Hermitage Antiquarian Bookshop.

Below is a quote of Topp trying to explain how the price of the same book can vary greatly depending on certain attributes.

Condition is tantamount,” said Topp, who provided this “quick and dirty” example: “If you have a first edition of ‘The Great Gatsby’ with no dust jacket, and it’s been read in the bathtub, has stains and tears, it’s not worth much. If you have a respectable copy, but no dust jacket, it’s worth from $1,000 to $5,000. If it’s immaculate, but has no dust jacket, it’s worth $3,000 to $5,000.

“And if you have a fine copy with a dust jacket, it’s worth $15,000 to $20,000. A fine copy with a fine dust jacket could be worth $40,000 to $50,000. If it’s signed “F. Scott Fitzgerald,” you can retire. And if it’s signed, ‘Dear Ernest, Enjoyed our fishing trip, but I’m a better writer. Nanny-nanny-boo- boo. F. Scott Fitzgerald,’ your whole glee club can retire,” said Topp, only half-joking.  - Colleen Smith , Denver Post, May 30, 2008

Click on the link below to read the rest of this great article about the used book business.

http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_9420073