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Bibliophiliac Attack pt. 2
I now own my very own copy of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency! I am so happy that I could ... well, do something appropriately Pinkwaterian, like spending the whole day wearing deelyboppers and then denying it if somebody asks why.
It's a lovely old yellowed Scholastic paperback, too. I am aware of the ugly omnibus reissues they've been putting out over the last few years - but Pinkwater books should not be bought in a Barnes&Noble; they should be found, after much effort, in a creepy, dusty, used bookstore, or a box in the attic, or the hidden back room of a thrift store; or perhaps picked out of a sale bin at an overly-bright discount store in a completely generic strip mall - the sort of places where Pinkwater characters hang out.
(Pinkwater is like the converse of the ideal Bobbsey Twins childhood - his world is screwed up, fundamentally idiotic, illogical, full of shades of gray, and occasionally just plain mean, but like his characters, you love it anyway because it's yours. It would slot right in with Gaiman's Neverwhere, or with The Cucumber King.)
I also bought a Coville novel that I read ages ago at the library but never owned, and The Space Eagle: Operation Doomsday, because it looked fun and the deal was 3/$1. It seems to be a tie-in novel to ... something, but neither Google nor I have any idea *what*. I suppose I should read it and find out. *g*
And speaking of loving a place because it's yours, I spent the morning at the Kuethe Library in Glen Burnie with the excuse that I was researching for a paper. They still use a card catalog! I fell in love the minute I saw the lovely old cabinet standing there, and that was *before* I got to spend three hours going through filing cabinets full of newspaper clipping. Ah, it was wonderful. Not a computer in the entire building, just shelves and shelves of books and drawers and drawers of paper. All you have to do is point me at a library and wind me up, and I keep going and going and going...
Of course, they didn't have a lot of what I was hoping they'd have, but that just gives me an excuse to get up and finally go explore all the other tiny local libraries and museums and historical societies, right? Not to mention pulling out everything that's stuffed up to the rafters in this house. (No, literally - the plat I need to find this evening is, I believe, stuffed up under a rafter in the attic. I wonder how you cite that in APA style? *g*) And the minute we get a nice Saturday, an excuse to go exploring through the woods with a notebook and a camera and an archealogical outlook. This should be *fun*. (Plus, once the paper's written, the people at the Kuethe Library want a copy for their files. The people at the Odenton Heritage society probably will too. wheee.)
It's so nice to finally have a paper topic that fills me with joy rather than 'eh, okay.' Even if I'm still procrastinating like mad on it whenever I get a chance.
It's a lovely old yellowed Scholastic paperback, too. I am aware of the ugly omnibus reissues they've been putting out over the last few years - but Pinkwater books should not be bought in a Barnes&Noble; they should be found, after much effort, in a creepy, dusty, used bookstore, or a box in the attic, or the hidden back room of a thrift store; or perhaps picked out of a sale bin at an overly-bright discount store in a completely generic strip mall - the sort of places where Pinkwater characters hang out.
(Pinkwater is like the converse of the ideal Bobbsey Twins childhood - his world is screwed up, fundamentally idiotic, illogical, full of shades of gray, and occasionally just plain mean, but like his characters, you love it anyway because it's yours. It would slot right in with Gaiman's Neverwhere, or with The Cucumber King.)
I also bought a Coville novel that I read ages ago at the library but never owned, and The Space Eagle: Operation Doomsday, because it looked fun and the deal was 3/$1. It seems to be a tie-in novel to ... something, but neither Google nor I have any idea *what*. I suppose I should read it and find out. *g*
And speaking of loving a place because it's yours, I spent the morning at the Kuethe Library in Glen Burnie with the excuse that I was researching for a paper. They still use a card catalog! I fell in love the minute I saw the lovely old cabinet standing there, and that was *before* I got to spend three hours going through filing cabinets full of newspaper clipping. Ah, it was wonderful. Not a computer in the entire building, just shelves and shelves of books and drawers and drawers of paper. All you have to do is point me at a library and wind me up, and I keep going and going and going...
Of course, they didn't have a lot of what I was hoping they'd have, but that just gives me an excuse to get up and finally go explore all the other tiny local libraries and museums and historical societies, right? Not to mention pulling out everything that's stuffed up to the rafters in this house. (No, literally - the plat I need to find this evening is, I believe, stuffed up under a rafter in the attic. I wonder how you cite that in APA style? *g*) And the minute we get a nice Saturday, an excuse to go exploring through the woods with a notebook and a camera and an archealogical outlook. This should be *fun*. (Plus, once the paper's written, the people at the Kuethe Library want a copy for their files. The people at the Odenton Heritage society probably will too. wheee.)
It's so nice to finally have a paper topic that fills me with joy rather than 'eh, okay.' Even if I'm still procrastinating like mad on it whenever I get a chance.
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I agree with you totally about Pinkwater books. I have the ugly anthologies, but my prized possessions are the yellowed, worn copies of Borgel and Alan Mendelsohn that I have found the hard way.
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I have withdrawn library copies of Alan Mendelsohn and now Hoboken Chicken Emergency and also *very* well-loved books-on-tape of the Snarkout Boys, read by the man himself ... every so often I stop by and gaze at the omnibuses, but then I think, do I really want to spend that much money on something I would get rid of at the first opportunity? (I kind of feel guilty about royalties though, I should probably send him a $20 bill someday.)