The Hungry Detective

A few weekends ago I went to the Rare Books LA show in Pasadena, California. I have attended that show or a version of that show more often than not in the last 7-8 years. In the earlier years I tended to walk out of there with something. I grabbed Michael Connelly's THE BLACK ECHO with blue rebate band. On a couple of occasions I was able to mine some moderately priced Edward Gorey books. But the last few shows, as my interests have narrowed, have been slim pickings. On the Edward Gorey side, there always manages to be a bookseller or two. Gorey was a prolific producer. But as a prolific producer many of those books are small run, virtually hand produced copies. Some stray into the hundreds of dollars for that reason. I am not opposed to buying the occasional expensive book, but when there are 30 or 40 with that price tag...  and as much as I like Edward Gorey... I am not quite there. [ Editor's Note: He means 'yet'. He's not there yet. ] I have, also, never really...

Thirty is now fourteen. I am at the halfway point of The List . The List was born out of a desire to reinvigorate my interest in Crime Fiction. Almost two years into this plan and I feel good about where I am...emotionally....physically...with Crime Fiction Although difficult to quantify I knew that the smart play two years ago was to focus on my core authors as a way to rekindle my interest in Crime Fiction. Chasing new authors with 'hot' debuts had lead me to a kind of ruin. My shelves became littered with authors and their two book deals that had come to nothing. A bunch three out of five star books that passed the time but never excelled. The other effect this plan had was to appease my desire to buy books. All those disappointing debuts that amounted to so much nothing still needed replacing. The promise of buying a book is completely separate from the shrug that it can elicit when I read the last page. Filling the gaps of my core authors also filled the need I have...