Well, dear readers, how did it happen? Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, how did it happen? How can it be the final day of June? Well, it is, which means tomorrow will be July, a month of fireworks and fun and frivolity and merriment and mirth and laughter and legs. And it is my fervent hope and prayer that July will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.
I don’t know when my obsession with book collecting began, specifically collecting first editions, but I recall buying my first first edition back in 1969 in Flatbush, when I found a copy of Harpo Speaks for five dollars in a used book store. Later I found out that that book was incredibly rare and went for between fifty and one hundred dollars. Then I became intrigued by the notion of collecting first editions – I didn’t really have a goal or even any idea of how to do such things. But once we moved into our first apartment in LA – the wifelet, the childlet, and the melet, I began reading about first editions, talking to some collectors, and I began to visit certain used bookstores, which at that time were all over Los Angeles and the Valley. This was the early 1970s. And I began to make sporadic purchases of books I liked. At the time I didn’t know a lot about it, but I found first editions of Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Later I would find out that all three of those books were American first editions and not the true firsts from the UK. So, that was one of the first lessons learned – always check where a book was first published. While it was nice to have the American editions, they weren’t the true firsts and as a collector that’s what you wanted.
Over the next few years, I bought more and more and amassed quite a nice collection – mostly authors I liked and books I enjoyed, plus, when the price was right, I took a chance on other authors and was introduced to all sorts of wonderful books. I discovered Raymond Chandler and Cornell Woolrich – the Chandler firsts were way out of my price range even then, and it’s only gotten a hundred times worse since – had I bought them back then I would have very valuable books, as they’ve escalated in price about 1000 percent. I discovered John Cheever and John Collier and many others. I began finding signed first editions. Starting with The Shining, I bought all the Stephen King first editions and also all the signed limited editions of his stuff. There was the happy day in the 1970s when I walked into a bookstore called The Bookie Joint in Reseda and found a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird in really terrific condition. I thought it was hugely expensive at seventy bucks or something like that, but I bought it. Today a copy like that would go for over twenty thousand dollars.
And then I got a deevorce and had to sell that collection. I kept only a handful of books that were signed to me, but not my personally signed Christopher Isherwood books and those I truly regret selling in that batch – and Mockingbird, too. And when I think what I sold them for, which was a small fraction of their worth – all to one dealer – the total was a nice number, but the collection was worth twenty times what he paid me and I’ve hated that dealer ever since. Then I didn’t really collect many books again until the late 1980s, when I would buy some first editions sporadically. I had two tiny bookshelves in my Santa Monica apartment, and they quickly filled up, but I didn’t go beyond that. But when I moved back to the Valley in 1996 or so, I really began collecting seriously again. I made sure I was always recording something in New York for the big book fair there. I remember shipping home six huge boxes of books – I’d discovered Ross Macdonald and was buying everything I could of his, plus Robert Bloch and other genre people. When I moved into my house in 1998 or so, I had an amazing collection, including its centerpiece: A signed copy of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window, signed by Chandler to Billy Wilder in the year they wrote Double Indemnity. I had a complete and pristine Macdonald collection, I had most of the Bond books save for the first four, I had a complete Woolrich collection the likes of which had never been seen, condition-wise, and I even had a rare proof copy (pre-publication) of To Kill a Mockingbird.
And then I sold off fifty of the prime titles in order to buy my first real piece of illustration art – an original J.C. Leyendecker painting used for a 1921 Saturday Evening Post Cover. Then the Varese thing collapsed and the Fynsworth thing collapsed and I had to sell a lot of art and most of my second collection or rare books. And that was that until about five years ago, when I very slowly began collecting again. VERY slowly. Just a book here and a book there. I still had tons of books in boxes that I hadn’t sold – lots of new, signed mysteries and a handful of other stuff. I also still had some very rare movie posters and other stuff, and through trades and bartering I began to get some really great stuff. And I now have a collection to be proud of – some stuff I used to have I’ve managed to get again, but I also have several things that were too elusive to ever get. There are still things I want – I so regret selling my true UK firsts of Lord of the Flies (signed by Golding) and Animal Farm – I did get Nineteen Eighty-Four back, but when I bought all of those years ago, they were reasonable – now you can’t get near them. Which is the thing with first editions – as investments they’re better than most things. If you buy carefully and invest in the right authors (I once had a book dealer tell me that he always watched what I bought because my instincts always proved prophetic in terms of what was going up in price), and I’ve had several interests in subject matter that have really caught on since I began collecting those particular things, especially books into film – I was doing that before anyone.
So, what are my prize books, especially ones I never had before? Well, the true first edition of Lolita, published in two paperback volumes by the Olympia Press – that was a long time coming. A beautiful copy of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a very difficult book to find – I’ve been VERY condition conscious this time around and I’ve got some of the most pristine copies of books known. I’ve managed to get all the key Stephen King books back, I now have a very nice collection of Ray Bradbury, something I never really had before, I’ve gotten a few of the Woolrich books back, but most of the good ones have gone way too high in value and even at those outrageous prices I don’t see copies that I would buy even if I could – the condition is just not good enough for me. I have one of the best copies of The Godfather, a notoriously fragile book and jacket, I have a really nice copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four now, I have several of the Bond books back plus the three-volume true UK first of Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, I have the one Robert Bloch book I wanted in a primo copy – Psycho, I have the true French firsts of Vertigo and Diabolique, I have the best copy I’ve ever seen of James Agee’s A Death in the Family, I have a beautiful copy of the UK first of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and all of the true first UK Harry Potter books save for the first, which is nigh unto impossible to find for under thirty thousand dollars.
Here is a photo of my Bradbury books – the important ones. I’m still missing Dark Carnival, his first, but the copies you see in this photo are gorgeous – the spine of Fahrenheit 451 is always faded as is this one, but the fade here is slight and you can still read 451 – 99% of the copies for sale you can’t even see the 451. The Illustrated Man is another spine that’s usually faded badly, and The October Country is the same – and my copy has no fading at all.
Here’s the important Stephen King books, which sit next to my thirteen books – including Cujo, which is signed by King to me the year it came out, which was the same year I was filming The Creature Wasn’t Nice – the inscription reads: “To Bruce Kimmel – there’s a creature in here, too, and he’s not nice either.”
And here’s just a photo of three of the cases, filled to the brim with fun books.
Well, that just took up four pages of notes. Yesterday was a pleasant enough day. I was up at nine, and did a three-mile jog, after which I had a cheese, mushroom and onion omelet and no bread or potatoes. It was, by that time, 101 degrees in the shade. I picked up no packages, and then came home. I did the eBlast for our Monday announcement. I did some work on the computer and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched the two-hour documentary about Harold Lloyd contained on the Safety Last Blu and Ray – it was quite good and very informative, and then I watched the three short films they included as extras and they were fun, too. Then I did a second jog, and then I listened to our new master. I had a little panic attack about it, and had very long telephonic conversations with mastering engineer James Nelson and trusted friend Nick Redman. This had to do with my perfectionism, but after the conversations I felt just fine about everything – it sounds really good. We did discover two mistakes I’d made and thankfully it wasn’t too late to fix them on the packaging, which hasn’t gone to press yet. Whew! Then I looked at the packaging on another upcoming project – quite handsome with a great cover. And that was about it.
Today, I have no plans other than doing some busy work that I have to finish doing before Monday afternoon – so, I will bite the bullet and my tongue and get it done. The busy work will continue on Tuesday, but that particular busy work should go faster. I’ll eat something light but amusing and then I’ll just relax and watch motion pictures.
Tomorrow will, of course, by July, and I’ll be up at six in the morning to announce our new title, and we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal in the afternoon, which I’m very much looking forward to. Tuesday I have the busy work and must get a lot of stuff done, Wednesday is our second Kritzerland rehearsal, Thursday is July 4 and I have a partay to go to at neighbor Tony Slide and Bob Gitt’s house, Friday I relax, Saturday is our stumble-through, and Sunday is sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, do busy work until I finish it, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland on this last day of June, while thinking of all the fine first editions that still are out there calling to me.