Friday Finds and Old Edition Books

The shelf here has some of my oldest books; that I know of. I have a few more boxes that I cannot get to right now, and I believe that I have more books in them. I just don't know which ones. Moving is a bitch, and I never quite completely recover- I mean unpack. :- ) BTW, that extremely dark green cup on the shelf is also old, not sure how old. I do know that while I was growing up, my mom had "mismatched" dishes. When my mom was pregnant with me, and my sister was under a year old, my parents house burned down. I think they lost pretty much everything, except for a few pictures and a partially burned wedding dress. So my now-departed, then-looney tunes grandmother (dad's mom) gave her some dishes and other people in the church my mom attended also gave some dishwares. All that explanation to say - I don't know were that green cup came from, but it sure is a beautiful green cup! I have never ever seen a cup like that anywhere else. Seems like my mom (and now I) have always had it. Some of the bottles on that shelf are from old, old, single shot booze bottles. They were the little bottles that Airlines used to give out. {Apparently they gave you a little drink in a bottle instead of pouring them in plastic cups like we get now.} My mom had a few plane rides, visiting Panama - her mother country- y su familia.

So! onwards to Friday Finds!

I found out about Friday Finds from Lost in Books, who found it at The Printed Page, who found it here: {whew! I think have the complete trail} At any rate, it seems that I have quite a few old hardbound books in my own shelves that I haven't really ever explored, other than marveling at the covers, looking at the publication dates, etc. One of the reasons is that it's trying at times to wade through the written word from say, 70 or even 100 years ago. People even spoke differently (of course) . Another reason is that I came across these books here and there, (sometime people were just going to toss them) over the last 20 + years. Over the last 20 years I've gone through four children, and now have grandchildren who like to explore grandma's books (to say nothing of my book-chewing dog). So I've been reluctant to read these books, positive that they will be destroyed.

I'm going to list about 2 of these older books every Friday for my Friday Finds, as well as books I see online.

I saw this one, Gods Behaving Badly at Well Mannered Frivolity ; written by Marie Phillips.

Marie Phillips is hosting a MySpace page for her gods, allowing them a place get some publicity. There is a book trailer and a few excerpts ("extracts" on her page). This story has the greek gods living together in a "filthy flat" in London, holding down jobs. Aphrodite is a phone sex operator, Apollo is a television psychic, Artemis (goddess of the hunt) is a dog-walker, etc,; the gods are losing their powers, and one falls for a human. Throughout all this they continue to plot against each other - ' cause that's how they roll! The more I find out about this one, the more I want to read it. Interestingly, 153 people have reviewed this on Amazon. Seems like a lot of people reviewing.....with ratings at each extreme, so an average of 3 and half stars. Either people hated it or they loved it. I read a couple of the excerpts and they are funny. I'm likely to get this book, when I can.

Night's Rose also looks like it could be interesting, a little different. It gets good customer reviews on Amazon.fail, but Mrs. Giggles wasn't too crazy about it; she rated it 77 out of 100. Annaliese Evans has also written The Prince of Frogs. I went back to Amazon customer reviews and got a better feel for what the book is. Think urban fantasy with erotica. I'm not so sure now that it's something I'll buy. I'll have to look at it in the bookstore, cause now....most of the woohoo scenes in books just kind of bore me. It's all been done (ooh, pun!) before.

I did like the excerpt of The Prince of Frogs though, which is a sequel, complete with the characters from Night's Rose. {A good sequel will always incorporate character's from the prequel..... : -) } After reading excerpts of both books, Night's Rose looks like it might be a decent read, but The Prince of Frogs (a sequel - as mentioned above) seems like it will be a better read. I would like to read these books. They are a mix of fairytale denizens {big word for the day} such as ogres, brownies, sprites, and vampires set in the 1700's.

Now, on to My BookShelf
In the spirit of unpacking {hey, we've been living in the "new" house for 7 months, might as well unpack a few more boxes...}, I went through three boxes today. One box had some of my collectable Barbies { I know! Barbies?! } and a few old editions of books. I re-discovered seven books that had slipped my mind, along with five collector Barbies. {these collector barbies are from around the world, with traditional clothing. Some of my favorites are the Nigerian, the Indian - India - and the Cambodian. Love the clothes. I know....pictures are wanted, but not now...just be patient.... : -) }

The first book is Little Women , by Louisa May Alcott. I read this book twice in my life. Once I read a library book version (from school) and later I read a version from the somewhere else - borrowed. Each one looked different. I picked this book up from some that were being tossed. I never realized that the original was written around 1896 {the first copyright year}. Never paid attention to copyright years when I was young. I guess at that young age I just assumed it had recently been written. It was already over 50 years old when I read it for the first time.

This edition is almost 100 years old. {so dramatic!} My edition is 94 years old, publish date is 1915. The pages are in pretty good shape, they are nice thick pages. The front cover looks pretty good, also.

The back cover has a little water damage; the color bled from the material. The designs on this book aren't just printed on, they are almost embossed. You can feel the design if you run your fingers over the book. The Spine of the book is also beautiful. The whole thing is a work of art, as most books published before 1960 (estimate) are. It's been so long since I read this book, and this is a fourth edition; I wonder if any of the words are going to be different. Probably. One of these days I am going to re-read this one. Even though it is a tearjerker.

This book, Humbolt's Life & Travels is one of those obviously very old books with NO publication date listed in the book. This drives me crazy. The cover is a silky material with a patterns stamped on it. The design is of leaves and flowers. It's beautiful. This edition is in very good condition (it rhymes). The inside page has a phrase tenth thousand. Tenth thousand what? Copy?

The cover title is spelled "Humbolt's" but the inside title page reads "The Life and Travels of Alexander Von Humboldt:; with an account of his discoveries, and notices of his scientific fellow-labourers and contemporaries". One book with this exact title comes up on Amazon, and the date for that one is 1860. {the prices on amazon range from $29.oo to $268.00} My copy is in good condition-very good condition {do I sound like a commercial?} though by some quirk, there are a few pages that haven't been cut open.


Even the back cover has a little design embossed on it.

This was supposed to be a Friday Finds Post; although I started it Friday afternoon, I kept gettin interrupted and had to stop many time. There are 4 or five people sharin this computer, also, so we all have to wait for each other. Oh well, next week, I'll be quicker- maybe