The Way of the Book

There's a new book metasearch site on the Web: ViaLibri, Resources for Bibliophiles.

You have the option of searching all bookselling sites, or just the ones you check off, and away you go. One of the nicer features is the ability to weed out unwanted listings. You know what I mean -- you're looking for an original copy of, say, John Leland's Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament Asserted, and a search brings up a slew of print-on-demand listings. Well, now you can find what you're really looking for without having to puzzle out the correct combination of keywords. Neato!

New Auction on eBay

It's finally here! My new auctions are listed on eBay and ready for bidding. Unfortunately for some, the Old Theology Quarterly #25 has sold already through "Buy It Now." The Millennial Dawn envelope and the Golden Age magazines are still in play, though.

I've included some postcards from Oberammergau, vintage 1922. One is signed by one of the actors. There's a mix of black and white and color cards, all in very good condition.

Where There's Smoke ...

You've won that book you've been searching for on eBay. You shiver in anticipation when the package finally arrives. Ripping it open, you can see the book is everything you hoped it would be, except ... What's that smell?

You employ the sniff test, and discover that the poor volume has been subjected to the smoke of a thousand cigarettes. Every molecule of paper has bound with one of Chesterfield's™.

What to do? You don't want to return the book, but you can't abide handling something that smells like an ashtray.

There are different solutions to this problem, but one of the easiest and least expensive involves the following materials:

• A large box of baking soda
• A "refrigerator box" of same
• Two rectangular plastic storage containers into which the book(s) will fit without touching the sides, one smaller than the other
• A lid to fit the larger box -- one that will provide an airtight seal.
• Time

1. Open the large box of baking soda, and spread some in the bottom of the larger container; about a 1/2 inch to an inch (2.5 to 4 cm) deep will do.

2. Place the smaller container on top of the baking soda.

3. Place the book(s) inside the smaller container.

4. If there is room, you may place a refrigerator box of baking soda in with the books (these boxes have a peel-away piece of cardboard that reveals a thin fabric; it allows the baking soda to absorb odors without spilling into the box).

5. Place the lid on the larger box and seal tightly.

6. Wait 4 to 6 weeks; check the odor of the book(s) periodically and replace the baking soda as needed.

This method's chief advantage is its cost-effectiveness. While it may not remove all the offensive odors, it will certainly mitigate them. Airing the book on your own smoke-free shelves after this treatment will also help.

L-Space and Its Subsets

Terry Pratchett has done the hard calculations and given us his theory of "L-Space", that phenomenon known to all frequenters of libraries and used bookstores:

Even big collections of ordinary books distort space and time, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned second-hand bookshop, one of those that has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves that end in little doors that are surely too small for a full sized human to enter.

Read more over at Lspace.org.

A Mysterious Passion

Louis M. Boxer reflects on the beauty of book collecting:

The passion for collecting books, like good taste, is something you are either
born with and/or fortuitously cultivate with great loving tenderness. It must be
nourished with time, or it will atrophy and wither away, which one would
consider a serious crime just about anywhere! Collecting my mystery books for
the sole expectation of making an exponential return on your investments is
extremely risky and speculative. More importantly, it unabashedly eviscerates
and brutalizes the beauty of collecting mystery books. Collecting books is
something that should be pursued for one's pleasure and personal satisfaction
above all else. It doesn't require a lot of money but merely an interest to
read, to learn and to share in others' lives. Ultimately you find yourself
becoming more preoccupied with the pursuit and the pursuit and the acquisition of the printed word at the expense of food, sleep or even sex! If this describes you, then you have taken the first step to admitting that you are a bona fide bibliophile. You cannot escape your fate nor can you buy, steal, or fake this passion.

Read more at http://www.charlesbenoit.com/CollectingMysteryBooks.htm.

Hat tip to Charles Benoit for the link.

Mystery, Romance, Exotic Adventure

Charles Benoit is an award-winning mystery writer whose books give you a rollicking good ride through foreign climes while his protagonists pursue both love and a MacGuffin. I loved his first novel, Relative Danger, and was hooked.

I quickly snapped up his next two: Out of Order and Noble Lies.

His sense of humor and well-drawn characters drive the plots well through various improbable scenarios. There are insights into the cultures of the various locales featured in the books which are obviously the fruit of his own experiences.

He seems like an interesting fellow in his non-authorial life: He hosts a jazz radio program (swing music -- I knew I liked the man!), likes martinis (the real kind, none of this fruity drink with "-tini stuck at the end" stuff), and is as well-traveled as his hapless heroes.

So if you like your books as light and dry as one of Benoit's martinis, give them a try.

New York, New York

The day the planes hit, I was trying to tune into a radio interview with Patrick Madrid. One of the stations had interrupted programming with a news bulletin; all I had to hear was "the president looked grave" to know that something bad had happened.

My younger kids were watching "Barney" or something. I shooed them out of the room and turned to a news channel to the sight of smoke coming out of both of the towers. They were breaking in with news about the Pentagon, and something about a plane crash in Pennsylvania. I switched back to kiddie shows and ran upstairs to my computer ...

I began emailing friends back in New York. I was born and raised in Queens, and I still have many friends and family who live and work there. One friend said he could see the smoke when he was crossing one of the bridges to his workplace. Shortly after that I got a message: "They're gone."

What do you mean "GONE"?

I tuned in to a visual report to see empty, smoking air where the towers had been. Unfathomable. I started crying, nearly screaming.

As the news reports came in, jumbled and confused, I was proud of my city. I saw New Yorkers mobilizing, getting ready to deal with the wounded that would flood the hospitals.

They didn't come.

In the days that followed, the people of this country stepped up and stepped in to bind the wounds. The firefighters collected fistfuls of $20 bills in boots on street corners here in Raleigh and in Durham to send to New York. Workers poured in from across the United States to help with search efforts. More food, clothing, and money than could be used were donated. The generosity of the American people can be nearly overwhelming.

But pain continued weeks after the attacks, with churches conducting funeral after funeral after funeral, day after day after day.

Remember, and say a prayer.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

I'd Rather Poke Hot Needles In My Eyes

Moving Day. More accurately, Mom K.'s moving day. Moving WEEK.

On the bright side, it's a nice new apartment in a retirement community, where she'll always have someone around to make sure she's safe. On the not-so-bright side we're going through the "which box was the soap in?" phase.

Back to Normal

At last we have returned to non-crisis mode. I'm still recovering bits and pieces of the last two years from the old hard drive, but the new computer is running fine so far and there haven't been any new setbacks.

We just spent a lovely Labor Day weekend in the lower Shenandoah Valley, wandering through antique stores and flea markets, and hitting a kid-friendly attraction or two as a sop to my boys. They don't much like me making them slog through the old furniture and glassware. I can't imagine why.

It wasn't very productive in terms of book finds, though I did get a $4 copy of Samuel Eliot Morison's History of the American People in one volume to replace the dinky 3-paperback set in my personal library.

It was wonderful to see the mountains again, and to see all the neat Virginia farms nestled among the hills and hollows. We'll have to take another trip there soon.

Oh, and another highlight: We visited Mount Airy, North Carolina, the boyhood home of Andy Griffith, and the inspiration for the fictional town of "Mayberry" on "The Andy Griffith Show."
I got a picture of my boys in front of Floyd's Barber Shop, which I'll post once I develop the film. (Yes, I still use 35mm film).

I'm a big fan of the series, though I haven't joined the "Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club" yet. Each chapter is named after a phrase or episode title from the show. Our local chapter is "The Concrete Jungle," located in Raleigh; others are "Citizen's Arrest!", "Kerosene Cucumbers," "Compelsion Complex," "Ernest T. Bass Window Removal Inc.", etc.

When It Rains, It Pours

My bi-annual computer meltdown has just occurred on my desktop/server, so I am going to have to push back the upcoming auction of antiquarian Watchtower items (see here).

I will get it going in early September if I can manage to sort out what needs restoration and what is best left to that big data dump in the sky. My next equipment purchases are a new desktop AND A BACKUP DRIVE, thereby giving me hope of breaking the cycle of crash, burn, lose data.

In the meantime, prayers from those who are so inclined are always welcome! And "I-told-you-sos" from techies are assumed, so y'all don't need to weigh in. I've been telling myself so all day.

Idiopathic*

*"Idiopathic is an adjective used primarily in medicine meaning arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause. From Greek ἴδιος, idios (one's own) + παθος, pathos (suffering), it means approximately 'a disease of its own kind.' "
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiopathic

Also, "from the Latin, meaning 'we're idiots, because we don't know what's causing it.'" -- Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House in the TV series "House."

My blogging has been light because my husband has had a recurrence of his deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary emboli (PE) in both lungs. It was a little scary last weekend. He took our son to kendo class on Saturday, and wound up unable to finish his own lessons because he became suddenly short-winded. He could barely speak after walking from the car to the house when they got back.

I took him to the hospital over his mild protests, where they admitted him after looking at his CT scans and finding that he had clots in both lungs. Fortunately, he did not have to stay more than one night.

Rich's DVT/PE is idiopathic (see above). He's not elderly (his first occurrence was 10 years ago at age 39), doesn't travel by plane for hours, isn't pregnant, hasn't had surgery, etc. When he used to make platelet donations they noted that he could donate twice as many as the average person, so maybe that has something to do with it. The "Why" of the situation eludes the doctors.

Things are pretty much back to normal, so work and blogging are back on track. Deo gratias.

Old Lighthouse Books Upcoming Auction Alert

I'm pleased to announce two special auctions which I will be posting to eBay within the next two weeks:

1. A Millennial Dawn "Missionary Envelope": Zion's Watch Tower of September, 1887, mentions a new campaign to raise awareness of Pastor Russell's teaching as set down in The Plan of the Ages. It involved using envelopes with Bible verses and an ad for Volume I of Millennial Dawn. One of these envelopes and an accompanying letter will be auctioned on eBay. The letter makes mention of a Pilgrim (traveling speaker for the Watch Tower Society) named "Jonson" who was a "converted Jew." This has to be P. S. L. Johnson, who later severed ties with the Watch Tower and began his own group, the Laymen's Home Missionary Movement. As of the writing of this letter, though (March, 1906) , he was still a member of the International Bible Students:


2. Old Theology Quarterly No. 25: The Only Name; A Criticism of Bishop Foster's New Gospel. This item contains a critique of a Methodist bishop's dissent from Protestant teaching on the salvation of people who never heard the Gospel:

Prices and starting date are TBD.

Book Larnin'

The serious student of the book arts will pay a visit to the website of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The school, founded in 1983, provides courses, lectures, and online information about printing, binding, identification, bibliography, and other essential knowledge about books for the collector and dealer.

If you can't afford the tuition or the time to attend the school, you can take advantage of the reading lists for the various courses. They're an education in themselves.

Now THIS Is Good for Its Age!

We live in exciting times indeed. The Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete copy of the New Testament, is going up on the Internet.

The Ironic Catholic ...

... has a subtitle that is da bomb! It's from one of my favorite authors:

"You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you odd."

-- Flannery O'Connor