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:
And so it became mine. Here’s the signature:
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.
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!
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.
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!
True – that’s perfect! :)
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…
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.
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.
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
This post made me smile. :) I’m glad you got something so meaningful!