Treat yo self

During my recent book purging project and efforts to minimize my material possessions, I scaled my book collection down by about 15%. As a result, I had about 250 books to sell or donate. I donated the majority of them, and the ones that had a bit more resale value I took to Strand to exchange for store credit.

Last week I took one of the last loads of books to Strand, including a few signed books. I took the signed editions up to the beautiful rare book room on the third floor to sell them. While they evaluated them, I browsed the signed books for sale and became curious about whether they currently had any signed Kurt Vonnegut books in stock.

I have wanted a signed Kurt Vonnegut book for almost a decade. While he was still alive, I hoped to be able to attend one of his events and meet him in person, which would have been better than any signed book. After he died I regretted that I’d never had the chance to meet him briefly at an event, but I decided that someday I’d still buy a signed edition of one of his books.

Darren, the wonderful rare book room manager, gave me a run down on the different editions they had and the value and uniqueness of each. They had a few books in a wide range of prices. At the highest end (and way out of my price range) was a first edition Cat’s Cradle for $3,000. But I wasn’t interested in owning an extremely valuable rare book anyway, I just wanted something signed by my favorite author. Whatever it was would become very special to me.

Then he showed me a signed, first edition hardcover of Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, edited by William Rodney Allen. It’s a collection of the very best interviews with Kurt Vonnegut that have been published over a span of 30 years (I already owned a regular copy, in paperback). This one was much more in my price range, and my store credit from selling books would pay for about 2/3s of it.

I thought about it for a bit while I browsed the store, and then came to this decision:

Treat Yo Self

And so it became mine. Here’s the signature:

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This book brings me a lot of joy, and I think it’s kind of neat how it came to be mine: I released a lot of books I no longer have use for out into the world where they can make other people happy, and in exchange I now have one new book that brings me joy. If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

 

By Emily

Book-hoarding INFJ who likes to leave the Shire and go on adventures.

9 comments

  1. I love seeing a post like this. For a long time, I would try to cull my books by selling them at my local used book store and wind up coming home with almost the same number of books I left with. I think sometime last year I realized how counterproductive it was and started thinking more carefully about what I was bringing back in. I’m not a crazy collector, but it does feel nice to bring home a beautiful first edition instead of ten more paperbacks. Glad you found something that brings you joy!

    1. Thank you! I’m very happy with this outcome too – sometimes with a lot of credit it can be tempting to buy things we don’t really need or want, so I’m happy I turned it into something I’ll treasure.

  2. if you’d met Vonnegut in person at an event, you’d have had a conversation with him while he was signing your book. So this way, you have both the “conversation” and the signature–it’s perfect!

  3. Beautiful post, Emily! It was wonderful to read about how you got your first rare book. It was also interesting to read about how you are purging your book collection. I am hoping to do something similar this year, but it breaks my heart to just think about it. But I have to get there…

    1. It’s so very hard to do. I still have over 1300 books, so I didn’t really get rid of a huge percentage, but it was still difficult. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to purge it down more than that. Best of luck to when when you start your own purging project – hopefully you can find good homes for the ones you let go – that makes it easier.

  4. That’s amazing! I’m glad you did something that made you happy. I’m a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan (one of my cats was named Kat Vonnegut Jr.) and I would absolutely die to have his autograph! Congrats on the purging, sounds like a tough and probably refreshing thing to do.

    1. So happy to meet a fellow huge Vonnegut fan! And so glad that Shannon helped to connect us. LOVE the cat’s name – so good! Vonnegut has always been high on my list of potential dog names for my future dog. :D

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