A big month of book hunting started with a walk through Oxford perusing the charity shops with a couple of old friends.  Oxford is a regular haunt and one of the shops that has been least fruitful in the past came up trumps with three – count them – three David Pelham illustrated Penguin Science Fiction classics.  Lovely!

Then, while off on hols with my lovely wife, had a chance to visit some fab second-hand bookshops including one of my all time favourites, Ystwyth Books in Aberystwyth where I grab some lovely bargains.

Also found a great shop near Nantwich – a new one for me – Cavern Books, where I grabbed some lovely seventies Puffins.  Highly recommended.

Lastly, my wife’s a fan of the Hay Festival so while she listened to the great and good, I visit some of Hay’s great bookshops including Richard Booths, Addymans, Green Ink and the Cinema Bookshop.

As always, my best finds are on the front page.

Phew!  That may be enough books for me for a while (or not).

The absolute highlight of my book hunting this month was a visit to Dorset Bob to purchase some wonderful vintage sci-fi books. As well as so many fantastic books for sale, Bob very kindly showed my his library of first edition Science Fiction hardbacks and his Badger and Pan collection. Just superb. Jules Burt did one of his wonderful videos at Dorset Bob’s recently so have a look.

Many of the wonderful books I got from Bob at a very reasonable price are on this month’s finds page.   As is a 1966 Penguin edition of The Kraken Awakes (cover by John Byrne) that I’ve been after for ages (I’ve added a scan of it to ISFDB where it was missing) and a bit of a battered copy of a compact edition of Judith Merril’s Shadow of the Hearth.

The Compact was from Zardoz book shop a regular haunt of mine as I live locally (online shop or those who don’t is here). Rather amazingly all books are just £1.00, so I always end up buying a dozen or more. Alongside the Merril, I got two other lovely compacts.

While the majority of books in my collection are from the 60s/70s, I do love fifties sci-fi books but its very hard to find them in reasonable, let alone good condition these days. I did manage to get three early Ballentine’s this month from a couple of different sources.

And finally, I’m increasingly on the look out for Mayflower Dell Sci-Fi.  Some of there cover are great!  Here’s three I got this month.

A busy couple of months on the work front meant less time to blog but I did manage to squeeze in some book hunting.

In February I had one of those thrilling moments of going into a charity shop and finding some wonderful vintage sci-fi books.  You hope every time you pop into one that you’ll find a gem, but mostly its just disappointment. But very occasionally you come up trumps and I did just that on a rainy Saturday in Southampton.   The guy behind the counter said “Someone dropped a box off yesterday and inside was a load of old stuff.”  By ‘old stuff’ he meant vintage gems.  I bought six and then, that night, lay awake cursing myself for not grabbing more so went back when I could a few days later.

I also try to pop into Zardoz book shop when I can which is reasonably close to where I live.  If you love vintage paperbacks do try and get along as I guarantee you will find something brilliant. (If you are not local you can always order via the website).  This time I came home with some lovely Digit Books which I think is a bit of an overlooked publisher and joined the 20 or so other sci-fi Digits on my shelf.

I also returned in February to the wonderful ‘Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985‘, which, as the blurb puts it, “celebrates and evaluates how science fiction depicted, interacted with, and was inspired by” radical cultural and political movements in the 60s and 70s.  Its such a great book and full of fascinating info.  During Feb and March I found four of the hundreds of ‘new wave’ sci-fi featured in the book.

While I was away with work I had the chance to visit Alton Secondhand Books, (strangely enough) in Alton.  It was my first visit and I will definitely be back as it was stocked chock-a-block with great books.  While I picked up a couple of vintage sci-fi, it also had quite a few vintage Agatha Christie books in early Fontana which also just had to come home with me.

Managed to grab a real bargain from Oxfam online bookshop while it had its Christmas book sale. A bundle of four Philip K Dick books from 70’s/80’s was being sold at 60% off – meaning £7.00. As I bought a couple of other things, I also got free postage. Wasn’t quite sure what the quality would be, but when they arrived they were actually all in very good or better condition. Lovely.

I’m also incredibly lucky to live fairly near the wonderful Zardoz Bookshop in Westbury, Wiltshire. Zardoz books online is a treasure trove of vintage books and their physical shop is stuffed full of vintage books, most of which they sell for £1.00. It is easy to come away with a bag (or two!) full of bargains, which is exactly what I did. Some of my finds can be seen on my monthly treasures list, but I was especially pleased to grab the 1961 Pan edition of Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon!

Meanwhile, as a member of the Penguin Collector’s Society (PCS), I got a chance to bid on books being sold in their January catalogue. To keep things fair, everyone’s wants list are all put in a hat, so if you don’t get picked early, chances are the books you want will already have gone. I did however, get 10 early Puffin story books, from the unsold after-sale including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (PS34) and Treasure Island (PS36) both published in 1946.

Ten Days That Shook The World, John Reed, Penguin Modern Classics, 1977

£3.00, Very Good condition, Oxfam bookshop

A beautiful copy of John Reed’s ‘Ten Days That Shook The World‘ in Penguin Modern Classic edition which details the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.  According to the book’s  publication page it was published in 1977 but Henry Eliot’s ‘The Penguin Modern Classics Book‘ insists it was first published as a modern classic in 1979.  It has an introduction by AJP Taylor, in which he notes a little testily, that when Penguin first published the book in 1966, it decided to do produce the book without his introduction.  The cover, typical of the Penguin Modern Classic series at this time, show a detail from a contemporary painting of the setting of the book, in this case ‘The Attack on the Winter Palace’ by V Kiriakov, which has become an iconic image of revolution.

 

October The First is Too Late, Fred Hoyle, Penguin, 1980

£5.00, Mint condition, eBay

I’m trying to get a copy of all of the Science Fiction books Penguin produced between 1935 and 1985.  I’m doing pretty well – although there are some I think I’m going to struggle with.  Some of the later ones, from the early eighties are also difficult to find in good condition so I was very happy to get this 1980 copy of  Fred Hoyle’s 1968 time distortion novel ‘October The First is Too Late with a brilliant cover by the much underrated Adrian Chesterman. Paid a little bit more than I normally would, but was Mint condition.

 

The Beatles in Help!, Al Hine, Mayflower Dell, 1965

£1.50, Good condition, Oxfam Bookshop, Dorset.

Nice little find in the ‘sale’ section of my local Oxfam bookshop to add to my small but growing ‘TV and Film Tie-in’ pile.   In  David Lodge’s Changing Places – one of my favourite novels – English academics at an increasingly fractious dinner party have to name classics of literature that they have never actually read.  Not quite as embarrassing but I have to confess that I have never actually seen Help!  Scanning the photo insert in the book hasn’t persuaded me that it should be on my ‘to watch’ list.

 

Dune, Frank Herbert, Gollancz SF Masterworks (Hardback), 2012

£4.00, Very good condition, eBay bundle

The Gollancz SF Masterworks series is an excellent collection of beautiful reprints of classic and recent science fiction.  The series is split between the earlier, black-spine numbered editions (1999 – 2007) and the newer, unnumbered  yellow spine editions (2010 – current).  Being a book nerd I prefer picking up the numbered black spin editions, but they can be hard to find in good condition.  A few of the later editions were printed in hardback and I was delighted to get this hardback edition of Frank Herbert’s Dune as part of a small eBay bundle.  I remember reading the book as a teenager and very much enjoyed the updated film version.

Plenty of rain around this month to drive me into second-hand bookshops, with some lovely finds.

The Hidden Planet, Donald A Wolheim (Ed), Ace Books, 1959.   

£1.00, near mint condition, Zardoz Bookshop, Wiltshire. 

Late fifties collection of science fiction short stories.  Donald A. Wolfheim is a legend in science fiction publishing with Robert Silverberg suggesting  he was  “responsible in large measure for the development of the science fiction paperback and the science fiction anthology.”  He was an editor at Avon books and then Ace (where he developed the Ace Doubles) and then went on to found DAW books.  His Wikipedia page is definitely worth reading in full.

Love on the Dole, Walter Greenwood, Penguin Modern Classic, 1975 reprint.

£2.00, good condition, part of small eBay bundle.

Lovely cover on this mid-seventies Penguin Modern Classic.  Penguin Modern Classics were introduced by then Penguin Chief Editor Tony Goodwin in 1961 with, from 1962, Germano Facetti designed covers based on the famous Marber Grid. Facetti wanted bright colours on the covers instead of the illustrations so he used images of paintings selected from museums and picture agencies. The pictures were generally chosen from the same period and social or historical context as the book itself, or in some way suggest or describe it.  This cover comes from a 1919 Labour Party election poster.  Perhaps appropriate as Labour has just won the General Election, but perhaps not as today’s Labour party is light years away from its early 20th Century origins.

The Female Man, Joanna Russ, The Women’s Press Science Fiction, 1983.

£1.99, Mint condition, Oxfam Salisbury.

I love these Women’s Press Science Fiction books published in the mid-late 1980s.  I’ve got about a dozen or so and grab them whenever I see them.  They have very distinctive grey spines and are usually in very good condition.  I hadn’t read this before and found it a great story.  Reminiscent of ‘Women on the Edge of Time’, a book that I read and loved in my early twenties (which was also published in this series but with the later black and white spine).

A Whiff of Death, Isaac Asimov, Sphere, 1970.

£3.00, very good condition, Oxfam Shaftesbury.

You never know where you will be led when you grab a book with a great cover off a charity bookshop shelf.  I assumed, being written by Isaac Asimov, this would be science fiction.  It turned out in fact to be crime fiction – originally published in 1958 in the US  as The Death Dealers (a title Asimov didn’t appreciate, hence the new title when republished).  The blurb on the back states that Asimov was “author of the famous S.F. crime stories.”. Something of an embellishment by the publishers there, as while he did write some crime short stories, as far as I know this is his only crime novel.  Hunting round for more details on the net discovered, however, that it was made into an Iranian TV movie, Formula of Death, in 2012.   Hats off for the great jacket, Sphere.

 

A stonking piece of luck brings me two gorgeous finds in an fantastic Welsh book shop.  Plus good fortune plays its part in the Penguin Collectors Society Auction…

The D.A. Holds A Candle, Erle Stanley Gardner, Penguin (Games Cover), 1957

£3.00, very good condition, Penguin Collectors Society auction

If you love vintage Penguin’s its a must to be a member of the Penguin Collector’s Society, primarily for the huge range of information they produce.  A bonus to membership is a chance to participate in their regular auctions.  Participants submit a list of wants from the catalogue and all these are then put into a hat.  What you end up with in part depends on the order you get drawn from the hat.  An early pick could see you end up with all your requests, but if you get drawn towards the end, there is little chance of your choices still being available.  I got lucky this time and got most of my requests including some lovely  examples of Penguins with covers designed by Abram Games, known as Games covers.

Bring The Jubilee, New English Library – Master SF Series, 1977

£2.00, good condition, Second hand bookshop, Pembrokeshire.

I’m a bit of a sucker for a Science Fiction Series.  I grab the Gollancz Classic SF and the SF Masterworks series if I ever see them at a reasonable price.  But this New English Library series was a new one on me.  Luckily the wonderful The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) reveals that its a series of 20 or so books published in the mid-seventies and edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison.   Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore is a great alternative history novel, published in the early 1950s,  in which the South won the US Civil War.  This edition has a lovely little introduction by Kingsley Amis who wrote one of my favourite alternative history novels  – The Alteration.

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick, Penguin, 1967

£2.00, mint condition, Ystwyth Books, Aberystwyth.

Although I collect a whole variety of paperbacks, Penguin science fiction is the core of my collection and my passion.  One glimpse at the the wonderful website  The Art of Penguin Science Fiction website will tell you why.  (Unfortunately the site has not updated its security certificate and so can only currently be viewed in ‘incognito mode’).  Out of around 350 different titles/editions I am missing around 75 and like all collectors, I dream of walking into a bookshop and finding mint condition copies of rare titles that I don’t have for next to nothing.  And that’s exactly what happened when I went into Ystwyth Books while on holiday.  Not one, but two beautiful copies of Philip K. Dick novels in Penguin.  Lucky boy.

The Penultimate Truth, Philip K. Dick, Penguin, 1970

£2.00, mint condition, Ystwyth Books, Aberystwyth.

A number of fantastic designers have created wonderful designs for Penguin science fiction cover over the years and one of my absolute favourites is Franco Grignani who produced an amazing set of 15 covers in the early seventies.  Again, The Art of Penguin Science Fiction website provides a lovely overview here. One of the set is Philip K. Dick’s The Penultimate Truth.  Being the first British paperback edition and having such a fab cover makes this a hard to find book. And so was delighted to find a mint copy at Ystwyth Books.  Will definitely return for another rummage soon.

Animal Farm, George Orwell, Penguin Modern Classics, 1973 reprint

£2.00, very good condition, via eBay.

Animal Farm needs no introduction.  And this gorgeous Penguin Modern Classic edition at £2.00 was a no brainer purchase, even though its a reprint. The cover, shows a detail from a Joan Miro painting, The Tilled Field.  Its probably been 45 years since I first read this novel and its still as great as the first time of reading.