# Which favorite old hardback books do you carefully preserve?



## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

With the advent of eBooks, I’m curious to know which old, treasured hardback or paperback books we lovingly cherish and preserve on our bookshelves. Books like school prizes, Christmas and birthday presents from family. Among mine are ‘The Wind In The Willows’, … Well, let’s see.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Two copies of "Bambi", one a book-ization of the Disney movie with big colorful illustrations, and the other a copy of the actual novel, that were both owned by my father when he was a kid in the 1940s.

"Across the Ages", a world history textbook used by my mother's father when he was the first in our family to go to college.

A professional book related to my field from 1944 that I bought used for a few bucks on Amazon.com

"Peter and the Unlucky Rocket", a copy of the very first book I ever picked out and read on my own.  The one I read was a library copy, my current copy is another used book picked up for five dollars or so on Amazon.  Alas, the one I have now has a different cover than my original copy, but the illustrations inside are the same.  I remember seeing one of them as a first-grader, and it is very strange the different interpretation I put on it now.  It's a big, intentionally flashy picture of Peter "launching" a vinger and baking soda "rocket" as his mother walks onto the scene.  Back then I saw her as an incredibly old grownup, now she looks like she's barely out of high school, yet wearing a June Cleaver-style dress.


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## gryeates (Feb 28, 2011)

I've got a few but top of the list would be the Arkham House editions of H.P. Lovecraft's collected works.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

gryeates said:


> I've got a few but top of the list would be the Arkham House editions of H.P. Lovecraft's collected works.


 Now those I don't have.


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## Jane917 (Dec 29, 2009)

I carefully preserved my Nancy Drew books, including a few copies that belonged to my mother (now 89), but alas, they have gone to a good home of a real Nancy Drew fan (a KB member) who has sworn to care for them forever. I also have the complete Book House set from my mother's childhood.


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## Val2 (Mar 9, 2011)

'A Treasury of the Familiar' edited by Ralph Woods. I found it at a yard sale and have carried it all over the world with me. It's full of famous - and not so well known - stuff like poetry, conversations, speeches etc.


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## JRMurdock (Feb 12, 2011)

I still have two book I bought as a kid at a garage sale. Both are far older than I am which is why I bought them. One is Old Yeller, and other is Call of the Wild. I know neither is a first edition, but being that I bought these with my lawn-mowing money and my first book purchases has made them near and dear to me.


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

I still have my original copy (1957) of *Peter Freuchen's Book of the Seven Seas
* which was the first "real" book I ever read.


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## spotsmom (Jan 20, 2011)

I have a first edition of "Gone With the Wind".  Unfortunately, it was the book club edition..  Anyway, a friend of mine had a leather cover put on it in about 1978. Treasure the thing, as it belonged to my mother.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

My 'Wind in the Willows' was a Christmas present from my grandparents in the early fifties. It's had brown paper and  plastic sleeves over the original cloth cover. Just handling it from time to time evokes fond memories.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Another treasure is 'First Overland'. an account of the Oxford - Cambridge expedition from England to Burma, written by Tim Slesser in 1957. It means a lot to me because, with a group, I also journeyed overland in 1966 along much the same route. We got as far as India.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

My most treasured hard backs are my Enid Blyton collection. They were all childhood gifts for Christmas and birthdays from my family. I still love them.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Ah! Now I'm dreaming of 'The Famous Five' Noddy also comes to mind.


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## susie (Mar 4, 2011)

All of my cookbooks.  I have hundreds in several languages, some very old with 'real' recipes.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Fantastic! Any Thai recipes?


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## Malweth (Oct 18, 2009)

I have an old copy of The Silmarillion that was my father's, but the only book I really keep safe is this:



It's the collected games of Go Seigen, cloth bound and boxed in 4 volumes. I don't know Japanese, but knowing the language isn't really necessary to read the book.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

That's the closest I've came to a book about Thailand since we started this thread. Japanese TV and cartoon books are popular here - with dubbing!


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

One of the books I take very good care of is my first edition hardback copy of Frank Herbert's _Dune._ Mostly because it's worth more than my car.  

Mike


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## kCopeseeley (Mar 15, 2011)

My treasured old hardbacks:
Freckles
Girl of the Limberlost
Little Women
Eight Cousins (Louisa May Alcott)
and its sequel, Rose in Bloom.

The last two are hard to find, they were my grandma's.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

My complete signed first-edition set of the Brandstetter mysteries and my copy of the Longman's edition of _The Charioteer_.


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## Averydebow (Jan 20, 2011)

I doubt any of the ones I protect have much value other than sentimental. I hold dear my mother's copy of _Little Women_, a rather unspectacular 1960's printing of _A Little Princess_ that I must have read twenty times as a child, and a battered compilation of poetry that used to be my grandfather's. They would be my "fire grabs." I would save them above any other book on my shelves.


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## BethCaudill (Mar 22, 2011)

I don't usually buy hardbacks, but here are some of the ones I've collected:

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories for Late at Night
Space by James A. Michener
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books (combination of mine and my husbands)


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## Dee Ernst (Jan 10, 2011)

I have all but two of the complete Nero Wolfe series in hardback.  I've spent a long time, and in some cases a lot of money over the past 30 years collecting them.  Still missing the Red Box and The League of frightened Men, if anybody's got a source.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I don't have any really nice old classics or anything on my shelves. But most of my Wheel of Time books are hardbacks (because I'm too impatient to wait for them to come out in paperback) and they're pretty treasured. I display them in a prominent spot in my livingroom. Also my Robin Hobb books.


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

My children's classics set, including *Heidi* and *Black Beauty*.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I have copies of My Friend Flicka and Thunderhead by Mary O'Hara that belonged to my mother before me.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I have quite a few hardbacks but my most cherished are my first edition copies of _The Queen of the Damned_ and _The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden_.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

> One of the books I take very good care of is my first edition hardback copy of Frank Herbert's 'Dune'. Mostly because it's worth more than my car.
> 
> Mike
> 
> ...


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## KaliedaRik (Jan 24, 2011)

markdamaroyd said:


> With the advent of eBooks, I'm curious to know which old, treasured hardback or paperback books we lovingly cherish and preserve on our bookshelves. Books like school prizes, Christmas and birthday presents from family. Among mine are 'The Wind In The Willows', &#8230; Well, let's see.


_The Wind In The Willows_ is the book I read most often when I was a nipper - though I never had a copy of my own: I had to keep borrowing it from the village library.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - it was while reading that chapter of the book that I suddenly decided (one morning) that I wanted to be a writer. Reading it again and it still sends shivers down my spine. Silly, really.

I don't have any books from my childhood with me now. I am in the process of replacing all of my Terry Pratchetts with hardback versions, but it's slow work.


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## Rhiathame (Mar 12, 2009)

My first edition The Neverending Story which is written in green and red ink to indicate which world we were reading about.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Nice to see 'The Wind In The Willows' popped up again!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Probably my most cherished are not particularly intrinsically worth as much as many of my other books: my 2-volume set of Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series (the original series, not the 2nd series which I have in separate hardbacks). I found these two books while spending some time between checking out from a motel and waiting to go to the airport in Phoenix at a used bookstore I found in a strip mall there. I believe they were a Science Fiction Book Club edition, the sort printed on cheap paper, not evenly trimmed, and not particularly good quality cover. However, they were in good condition -- including the dust jackets -- and the shop owner had covered them in clear plastic covers to protect the dust jackets. I bought them without a blink of the eye, as by that time my original Avon paperbacks were about ready to fall apart after multiple re-readings. I am now probably into double-digit re-readings of these copies, and they're still going strong.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

What a huge and diverse collection we're getting. I've probably missed it, but I don't recall seeing Charles Dickens anywhere?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

markdamaroyd said:


> What a huge and diverse collection we're getting. I've probably missed it, but I don't recall seeing Charles Dickens anywhere?


My dad has a complete collection of Dickens from Book of the Month back in the 40's and 50's. One day, no doubt, they'll be mine.


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

Saki (h.h. munro)
P.G. Wodehouse
Isaac Asimov (Foundation Series)
Georgette Heyer
O'Henry


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> My dad has a complete collection of Dickens from Book of the Month back in the 40's and 50's. One day, no doubt, they'll be mine.


 I'm sure they will. When I lived in the UK, periodically successive family members 'turned out the attic'. The old books discovered were quite mind-boggling.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

It's not that old, but a few years back, after several years of watching Abebooks, I finally found a first edition of Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ that I could afford. (Due to a limited print run of something like 250 copies, many of which ended up at libraries, they normally sell for a ludicrous price, but the seller had marked it way, way down due to a small splash of water damage around the back inside hinge.) A couple years after _that_, Stephenson was doing a reading/signing across the state, so I bought my ticket, put together a mix CD, and drove over.

When I handed it over to him to sign, he said, "Hey, look what _he's_ got!" I did some babbling probably not far removed from the gibberish spoken by the cultists in the book itself.

I'm going to be buried with it.


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## ajhunter (Aug 23, 2010)

I have editions 1-7 of Marks Mechanical Engineering Handbook, working my way up to the latest (11th) edition.  It's very neat to see the evolution of engineering and technology since 1916.

I know, it's geeky, nerdy, whatever...but my wife loves me!


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

I literally have some 'old' books - from the 1920's and 30's written about a woman called Sophie Dawes. She fascinates me as a character and I started to collect books about her....THese books are lovingly preserved as they are slightly foxed and fragile with age. I cant see any way they'll ever appear as eBooks - heavens they've been out of print for at least half a century!


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## Julia444 (Feb 24, 2011)

I have preserved all of my old Mary Stewart suspense novels from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  Some of my favorites are MADAM, WILL YOU TALK?, THIS ROUGH MAGIC, NINE COACHES WAITING, WILDFIRE AT MIDNIGHT, MY BROTHER MICHAEL, and THE MOONSPINNERS.

I also have old Victoria Holt and Phyllis A. Whitney novels that I treasure.

Julia


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

NogDog said:


> 2-volume set of Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series (the original series, not the 2nd series which I have in separate hardbacks).


I've got one of these, too, taken (with permission) from my dad's collection.

I've also got portions of an old printing of Dumas's Musketeers collection in faded green hardcover.

My most precious is probably the three Patricia McKillip paperbacks _The Riddlemaster of Hed_, _Heir of Sea and Fire_, and _Harpist in the Wind_. I used to spend hours staring at the simple line drawings inside the front covers. I can barely imagine the experience of the book _without_ those humble little illustrations.


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## markdamaroyd (Jul 16, 2010)

Aaron Pogue said:


> I used to spend hours staring at the simple line drawings inside the front covers. I can barely imagine the experience of the book _without_ those humble little illustrations.


 The sheer artistry of reproducing those drawings pre hi-tech days make them so much more interesting and appreciated.


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