The George W. Bush Library

It is ironic that the least literary of our Presidents has built the largest of all Presidential Libraries. It is on the campus of SMU in Dallas, Texas. The grounds cover 23 acres and include hundreds of trees and shrubs. Molly Ivins would be pleased! Entrance to museum and library is shown above, with an armed guard in place. A few facts highlighted in the news this past week.

The new W library will house 80 terabytes of digital data - thus, explaining why the facility had to be so large. I doubt that W could access any of this digital archive without help. It is possible that the number of real, old fashioned books eventually may exceed 100.

It is the first LEED certified Presidential Library - seems strange from a leader with such an environmentally hostile administration (some of the landscaping is shown below). It is rumored that when serious trimming efforts are needed on the grounds that Bush will drive his huge pickup, with chain saw, up to SMU. Some pundits are now speculating that W was really a closet greenie.

Just less than a year ago I noted: In an ironic twist of fate, Ray Bradbury was presented the National Medal of Arts (2004) by one of our most non-literary presidents - ceremony shown below. Kurt Vonnegut would say: "So it goes."

More On Gatsby!

Oh my - There is new edition of The Great Gatsby out that is a tie-in with the new movie. A 3-D, full-color movie of the 1920s classic - sounds very vile to me. The garish cover of the new trade paperback edition is shown above. It is causing a bit of a stir and got its own article in the NY Times. A quote from the article:

“It’s just God-awful,” Kevin Cassem, a bookseller at McNally Jackson, said on Tuesday. “ ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a pillar of American literature, and people don’t want it messed with. We’re selling the classic cover and have no intention of selling the new one.”

Movie tie-in editions are issued regularly in the book business, but rarely has the contrast between two covers of the same title been so pronounced.

The link to the full article :  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/business/media/new-great-gatsby-book-carries-a-hollywood-look.html?emc=eta1

"A Book By Its Covers"

An interesting feature appeared in the NY Times during the past week and in their Sunday's "Style" Magazine. The article is by Jeff Oloizia and is focused on various dust jackets/book covers that have appeared on "The Great Gatsby." The examples are from the collection of the late Matthew J. Bruccoli. The article can be accessed at: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/a-book-by-its-covers/ 

Below are six of the examples from the article - note particularly the final paperback cover from Bantam!

Robert Ludlum's First Two Books

 

I have continued to get far behind in mentioning books that I’ve read recently. “Recent” now means back to around last November.

Back then, I decided to read Robert Ludlum’s first two books: The Scarlatti Inheritance and The Osterman Weekend. The books were published by World Publishing in 1971 and 1972. I had read his first book long ago and, after beginning the second, realized that I had also read it at some time. I didn’t find either book to be good reading this time around. The plots of both are completely beyond any level of credibility. Numerous reviews can be easily googled on line and I will not go into any detail here. I couldn’t really recommend either title. Obviously, Ludlum’s thrillers either improved substantially, or reader’s were just taken with his leading characters, since his titles have sold hundreds of millions of copies over the years. New titles carrying his name are still appearing, even though he died in 2001.

However, both of these books present a real challenge for collectors. They were bound in cheap leatherette boards which were prone to chipping and cracking with age. The jackets for both were printed on clear acetate which did not age well, with copies often having yellowed and chipped jackets. Further, the BOMC versions were identical to the first editions, except for small, square blind  stamps to the lower corner of the back board, near the gutter. The BOMC jackets were not priced. BOMC copies are sometimes mistaken for 1st printings, so caution is needed. Copies of the both books, when found in collectible condition, may be priced at several hundred dollars, more if signed.

Ludlum was an actor and became well-known for his deep vocals in numerous TV commercials over the years. His death, at 73, seems more of a mystery than those of some of his novels. Thirteen days after signing a new will, leaving his entire estate to his second wife of four years, he was engulfed in flames while lounging pool-side at his estate in Florida. There was little investigation of the unexplained fire, and he died shortly after being released from the hospital, following treatment for severe burns. Some relatives contend that he was murdered and fights over his estate continue to this day.

2013 Festival Of Books Now History

The festival has come and gone, and reports indicate that it was quite a success. The first day was a bit dicey with the wind, cold, and showers, but the second day was very pleasant. Photos below are from the Festival's newsletter. The three authors shown are: Ted Danson throwing a pitch (actor, author, and environmental activist - middle left), Robert Crais (author of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike mysteries - middle right), and Jodi Picoult (author of fiction best sellers - bottom left). The dates for the next Festival are already set - 15, 16 March 2014.

Photos courtesy of James S. Wood Photography, David Whitney French Photography, and Monica Surfaro Spigelman for the Tucson Festival of Books

Tucson Festival Of Books This Weekend

The Fifth Annual Tucson Festival of Books will be happening on the University of Arizona campus this weekend - March 9 and 10, 2013. The first four of these events have been extremely popular and have brought a wide cross-section of authors to town. The photo below is of the crowds on the Mall last year. The big concern this year is that a strong front will be moving through on Friday afternoon and evening. Temperatures will be much colder and Saturday especially may be raw and damp; bad timing and nasty weather may significantly impact the event this year.

Photograph  by David Sanders, Arizona Daily Star.

Quick Trip To San Francisco

We took a brief trip to San Francisco early this month. Katie has a graduate student who was presenting at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) December meeting. We left Tucson during the afternoon of Wednesday, December 5th, and arrived at SFO after dark and just behind the last of the heavy rains that week. We took the BART into downtown and walked up the hill to our hotel. We actually had a great view from our room (a bit different than the usual city view of adjacent brick walls). The photo below was taken

from the room, looking down on the Christmas tree in Union Square Park and ice skaters to its left. In the background is the large Macy's store, where we had a late dinner at one of celebrity Chef Hubert Keller's Burger Bars - an interesting but noisy place.

On Thursday, I walked the streets of San Francisco, sort of like Karl Malden, but in search of bookstores to  investigate. Did have some success - more on that later. Katie and her student spent the day at the AGU meetings down at the Convention Center. We had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant on Sutter Street, Cesario's. It has mixed online reviews, but we were lucky and had a very good dinner there. On Friday morning morning I returned to a bookstore, while Katie finished attending another session at the AGU.

We then met Katie's sister, Lisa, and her husband Jim, and took a cab over to the Old Ft. Mason area. Great views on the sunny day we had - below is a panoramic photo I grabbed from the internet. The Ft. is now under the care of the National Park Service and is home to restaurants, museums, and stores, as well as a great Friends of the Library bookstore. We had reservations at a well-known, vegetarian restaurant - Greens. Details about this wonderful restaurant are at their website - http://www.greensrestaurant.com/

This was the third time we'd gone to the restaurant and it is one of our San Francisco favorites. While we were eating, a seal popped up next to the pier to take a look at what was happening. I shot the photo of

him/her right from my chair in the restaurant - picking up some artifacts from the window. I also got a restricted shot of a large cargo ship (below) steaming into the Bay after a long trip across the Pacific. It is

loaded with hundreds of truck-sized shipping containers, undoubtedly filled with cheap goods from China that are headed to WalMart stores across the country. So it goes. After we finished our visit to Ft. Mason, Lisa and Jim headed off to do some shopping before heading back to Davis. Katie and I took a taxi back to downtown and then the BART back to SFO for an evening flight home.

The bookstore that I visited at length during this trip was the Argonaut Book Shop at 786 Sutter Street.

Above shows the store from across the street - will be hard to see when those newly planted trees mature. Photo below shows an interior shot that captured owner Robert D. Haines, Jr., sitting at his desk back there on the left side. The store was founded in 1941 by Robert D. Haines, and was a founding member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America. Bob has run the store for the last 40 years. I have visited here each time we've been in San Francisco and spent hours browsing the shelves, always finding a few .

items that are too tempting to leave behind. Angela C. Haines and Aaron C. Haines have joined their father in the business, becoming third-generation booksellers. Details concerning the Argonaut are at:
                                                     http://www.argonautbookshop.com/

Some of the items that returned to Tucson with us are shown here. Above are two books concerning the "Apache Kid," who evolved from a trusted Army scout into a hated and hunted outlaw. I hope that some of my customers who study Southwest history may find these titles of interest. Below is a Steinbeck-related item. It is actually a beautifully produced brochure advising of The Yolla Bolly Press' publication of a special, limited edition of Steinbeck's Zapata. Wish that I had one of the limited editions to show, but the brochure is a rare and interesting item itself. So, that's a brief summary of our quick, end-of-the year trip.