Leyburn, North Yorkshire, England — A highly important collection of C.S. Lewis titles from the library of the author’s lifelong friend Cecil Harwood (1898-1975) is to be offered in Tennants Auctioneers’ Books, Maps & Manuscripts sale on 28 July 2021. […]
Leading the collection is C. S. Lewis’s personal annotated copy of Snorri Sturlason’s Heimskringla (Cambridge, 1932), a hugely evocative literary artefact shedding light on his mature engagement with the Norse sagas which had first stimulated his ‘imaginative Renaissance’ as a young schoolboy (estimate: £700-1,000 plus buyer’s premium).
I can’t find any information as to who got the book.
Publishers Weekly has their 2021 best books list out. They more than anyone can publish a Best-Of list early. If you were throwing out your own nominations for best books of the year, what you would say?
I’ve mentioned before that this blog shares a name with a bookstore but no other relationship. Brandywine Books of Winter Park, Florida, was a cute seller of used and well-kept book. The owner knew about our blog and I believe delighted in its existence. I know this because my sister stopped by a few years ago. The shop closed within the past two years.
Japanese readers are hooked on the belief that bestselling author Haruki Murakami should have won the Nobel for literature by now. The Japan Times claims Murakami is “best known for his 1987 bestseller Norwegian Wood,” but he has many other titles and presumably outpaces all other Japanese authors in sheer Nobel potential. The article notes a few reasons why he could contend for the prize and a few reasons he might not win it. (via Literary Saloon)
Did Ernest Hemingway actually say, “The rain WILL stop, the night WILL end, the hurt WILL fade. Hope is never so lost that it can’t be found”? The Quote Investigator looks into it.
Author Glynn Young reviews the second Will Benson thriller, Blind Defence by John Fairfax, “so engrossing that the reader finds himself on the edge of his seat.”
Photo: Power’s Hamburgers, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1993. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.Purchase; John Margolies 2015 (DLC/PP-2015:142).
There should be a picture at the top of this post, showing me lecturing in my Victorian frock coat. But I didn’t think to have one taken. You’ll have to imagine it for yourself. This old photo of Boss Tweed should help.
The drive to Madison, Wisconsin runs between four and five hours, not counting gas and food breaks. That seems like a long drive to me in my old age, but I handled it. My chief concern was on-board entertainment, since the loaner I’m driving has no working stereo. I finally settled on buying an audio book from Amazon, and listening to it through earphones, on my Fire tablet. Worked OK, once I figured out how to start the reading at the beginning of the book. The Amazon people, like any good pushers, give you the first taste free, so I got a book I’d read already, Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs. I’m glad I got a book I was familiar with, because sometimes one gets distracted (by Google Maps directions, for instance), and there’s no easy way to repeat text with your hands on the wheel. But all in all, a successful experiment.
As I mentioned last week, I’d been operating on the assumption that I was going to be lecturing on Saturday, then discovered it was really Friday. So I had to adjust my plans and rearrange my hotel reservation. That lost me any opening in the hotel where the meeting was, but I got a room just up the road. Within walking distance…. As if I was going to walk, with five cartons of books to carry, plus PowerPoint equipment.
The meeting was the Tre Lag Stevne, held every two years by a coalition of three Norwegian-American bygdelags. Bygdelags are associations of descendants from particular regions of Norway. Genealogy is one of their big activities. I’d spoken to them about Vikings, two years back in Alexandria, Minnesota.
This year the theme was the emigration period, including the Haugean evangelical movment. One of the organizers remembered that I came from Kenyon, Minnesota. He contacted me, saying he’d always been curious about the Old Stone Church, located between Kenyon and Faribault. Did I know anything about it? Indeed I did. The Old Stone Church (built around 1877) was the original building of my home congregation, Hauge Lutheran in Kenyon. On top of that, I grew up on a farm precisely 1.5 miles south of the old building. I had much to say on the subject, some of it pertinent.
Thus my lecture was outside of my usual wheelhouse, but I believe it went well. The audience was attentive, and they laughed in the right places. There were many questions afterward, and a lot of compliments. Book sales were good, but not spectacular as they were the last time I spoke to the three Lags. No real surprise there; you almost never do as well fishing the same waters a second time. But I made enough, along with my honorarium, to make a small profit on the trip – assuming I don’t price my time very high. Which I generally don’t.
On the way home, I had one very pleasant surprise. It’s my custom to eat at established franchise restaurants when traveling, purely out of timidity. I’ve had enough bad meals in small cafes to be leery of them – which, I imagine, has lost me as many good meals as bad ones over the years. But I pulled off the highway near Menomonie, thinking I’d find gas and a Culver’s at that exit. I got the gas, but it was the wrong exit for the Culvers’. So, being tired, I decided to take a chance on the café attached to the gas station. I wanted something resembling a genuine meal, not a burger and fries, so I gambled on the daily special, the fish dinner. I fully expected a couple of those sad, flat, freezer-dried planks of breaded fish you see so often in rural cafes.
Instead, what I found before me (after a wait, but you have to wait everywhere these days) was fish entirely indistinguishable from Culvers’ North Atlantic Cod. Which is high praise indeed. And the fries and cole slaw were better than Culvers, in my epicurean opinion.
I’ll give them a plug. The Exit 45 Restaurant. Tell ‘em I sent you, just to confuse them.
Then I drove home and collapsed.
This next weekend, a shorter trip, but more complicated and packing heavier. The Crow Wing Viking Festival, near Brainerd, Minnesota.
At last I found a lawn guy. I chose the guy who put up a flyer at my church, rather than any of the hard-sell sharks who went all feeding-frenzy on me after I waded into the Home Advisor waters. I may be sorry I made the choice one day, but at the moment I’m pleased with my sales resistance.
No word on the car yet, of course. I have a Viking event this weekend (the link to the Little Log House Antique Power Show is here, if you’re going to be near Hastings, Minnesota), and I’ve been forced to beg a ride from a fellow Viking who can accommodate all my stuff in his vehicle. I’ll owe him a favor now… heaven knows what might be asked of me one day. (I draw the line at felony-level violence.) I hope to have the new paper edition of The Year of the Warrior to sell at this event, and that kind of excites me.
I’m almost surprised to say it, but the new novel, King of Rogaland, is coming together, I think. Now that I’m starting to get the various plot threads tied up properly, I like what I’m seeing. I’ve got ongoing themes happening here; a uniformity of effect (I hope). One oddity of this book (for me) is that it includes more embedded stories than my previous books. By that I mean a character in my story sitting down and telling a story of his own. These interpolated tales, in general (I think), also advance the unified theme. Another oddity is that there are no major battles (hypocritical of me, I suppose, as I’ve criticized Stephen Lawhead for lacking the nerve to write battles). But the final confrontation is – I think – dramatic enough to have a similar artistic effect.
I read a quotation recently that impressed me. I don’t recall the source, or the exact words. But the gist of it was, “The better you get as a writer, the harder writing will be for you, because your critical standards will be raised.” So just go ahead and do it – if you’re having this problem, you’re probably a better writer than you think.
Oddly enough, I first posted the art above exactly three years ago, on June 18, 2018. It’s the cover for the new paperback edition of The Year of the Warrior. Baen Books still publishes the e-book, but I have their clearance to produce and sell this corporeal version. Various obstacles have arisen since that time to prevent production, but I finally took the bit in my teeth a few weeks back, and arranged with a printer I know to get this thing done.
My plan with this version is to sell it personally, at the Viking events I participate in. If you’re hoping to get it on Amazon, that probably won’t happen, because (I assume) I’d have to ask questions and go through a bunch of red tape to arrange for that. And I’m too old and lazy.
I’m not sure when I’ll actually have them in my possession. The printer sent me the galleys today and told me there’s a problem with the cover. I think I’m going to have to add space at the top and bottom to fill out the cover shape. But I haven’t looked at it yet.
I’m too old and lazy. I’ll get to it over the weekend.
I really like that cover, though. It would have had me wiggling like a fishing worm, back when I was a teenager. Jeremiah Humphries did it, and I think it’s my favorite cover that’s ever been done for one of my books.
Now if I can just find a few more events to flog them at this summer.
Imagine, if you will, my bedroom. It is a palatial space, done in Wedgewood Blue in a Regency style, adorned with wholesome yet costly art, open and airy in ambience, with broad windows overlooking the ocean.
It’s nothing like that, of course. But you don’t think I’m going to describe my real bedroom, do you? You didn’t sign up for that kind of ashcan realism.
Anyway, my mornings in semi-retirement have acquired a sort of routine. I wake up way too early, as is the way of old people, and then try to get back to sleep. I can often achieve this (not always), but in between attempts, I check the email on my cell phone. You never know when translation work will show up, and they’re 7 hours ahead of us in Oslo.
This morning, I managed to get back to sleep around 7:30 a.m. I know this because that was the time when an email came in with a little job of work. Which I didn’t see until I woke up again, an hour later. The message was, “Can you do this small job? It’s not big but I need it in a couple hours.” Of which I’d already wasted one.
But I rolled out, postponed other things, and set about the task. Finished in plenty of time. Back to the usual Friday morning schedule then. Which involves washing clothes.
Shall I tell you about the new sheets I bought?
No, you’ve committed no sins to deserve that.
Maybe I should address the picture I posted above. Yes, why don’t I do that?
I posted that photo on Basefook precisely 3 years ago, whenViking Legacywas finally released, after many delays (if you want the paper version, I think this link works now). I’m still quite proud of it.
Just ordered a supply for events this summer. Did the same with West Oversea. I’m now invested in the prospect of a post-lockdown, semi-normal summer. When the paper version of The Year of the Warrior materializes, I’ll be all in.
Look at me, the avaricious capitalist risk-taker, living out my politics.
Dale Nelson drew my attention to this book offering at AbeBooks.com. It’s an original review copy of C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength (one of my favorite novels in the world), autographed by the author himself to George Orwell and his wife.
Posted price: $30,000.
I’m sure some of our elite blog readers are in a position to purchase this book, and then donate it to the Marion Wade Center or some other worthy institution.
I wish we had a referral arrangement with AbeBooks, as we do with Amazon, so we could get a piece of that action.
In case you’re wondering what Orwell thought of the book, he called it “worth reading,” but was not in love with it.
If you’re on a budget, you can get the book slightly more inexpensively here. We do get some of that.
Perhaps you’ve been wondering what I’ve been thinking about the recent tragic events that began in Minneapolis.
I’ve been reluctant to talk about it. Frankly, I’ve just been hunkered down, “sheltering in place,” as the saying goes. I’ve reduced my talk radio listening, because it’s just too sad and depressing. I’ve buried myself in light reading, which is why I’ve been doing so many book reviews lately.
I’ve actually seen none of the rioting. Property destruction was centered in the southern inner city, far from my home. Some damage has been reported in a suburb north of me, but the boarded-up store windows I’ve seen personally have been precautionary.
But the area of main damage in Minneapolis, around the intersection of Hiawatha Avenue and Lake Street, was my old stomping grounds. I lived in that area for much of my twenties. Not only am I familiar with some of the destroyed businesses, I even remember what businesses were there before them. Spent a lot of time waiting for buses around there, back before I owned a car.
The most famous casualty for readers is of course Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore. Uncle Edgar’s was its twin, serving the mystery market. Uncle Hugo’s was not only a cultural landmark but one of the seedbeds of the whole Fandom movement.
I wasn’t a regular customer at Uncle Hugo’s, but I’d been there a number of times. I participated in a book signing there once (that was where I met Lois McMaster Bujold).
And it was there I had gone way back in 1984, flush with the excitement of my first commercial short story sale, to Amazing Stories. I asked the owner to order me extra copies so I’d have a stock to give away (I wasn’t aware I could order them from the publisher – that’s how green I was). When I went to pick them up, he asked me to sign a couple copies he’d ordered for himself – “So I can show them to people when you’re rich and famous.”
If those copies still existed, they’re ashes now.
Another loss – not burned but trashed – was a local Scandinavian meat market and gift shop. I bought stuff from them every year. I think I won’t provide their name here, since I assume they’re ELCA Lutherans and wouldn’t care to be associated with me. But they’d been on Lake Street since the 1920s, back when the place was thick with Scandinavian immigrants. Over the decades, through multiple population changes, they’d stayed committed to the neighborhood.
No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes.
When the George Floyd tape was first released, I was horrified. But I also thought – just for a moment – that this might bring us all together, in common outrage.
Instead it gave a golden opportunity to the neo-Maoists.
Pray for us. Especially for the poor who, as always, pay the highest price for the ideological games of intellectuals.
The last time Vegas shut down was Nov. 23, 1963 out of respect for the death of a president. Yesterday Nevada’s governor said they needed to shut down for thirty days. People had been staying home for a while anyway.
“You see all these massive buildings that are meant to have 10,000 people in them and no one is there,” one interactive gaming exec said.
That means gamblers will have to find other ways to, uh, invest, like, say, the weather. Bookies are taking bets on high temperatures in select cities, rainfall, and events on American Idol. Of course, other countries have sports too, so maybe we’ll see a spike in soccer interest.
Two major movie theater chains have closed until better health prevails. I just learned my local library will be closed until April 1; they are encouraging us to use their digital borrowing service, Hoopla. Perhaps the librarians won’t have to go on unpaid leave, like those of retailer Tattered Cover of Denver, one of the largest independent bookstores in the country.
We’re living in troubling times. I’ve seen more people walking through our neighborhood, but the warm weather could have inspired that. Three of us took that walk after sunset tonight. Dark, empty streets can be nice.
