Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Found Today..

It's always hard returning to work after an idyllic holiday, particularly when the children are back at school and there's a whiff of autumn in the air. But the blow is softened by the fact that I no longer work for these people and I now get to find things like this:

I used to assume that the day would come when I'd no longer be amused by the addition of beards and glasses to pictures of people, but this still makes me laugh. Slightly.

As for the next jacket, it makes you realise how times have changed:

I was quite excited to find this signed dedication by William Golding:

However, I had a bit of an awkward moment when someone from the warehouse presented me with this "signed" copy:

I tried to explain that a 1970 book about the paintings of Goya couldn't possibly be signed by the artist, but I ended up feeling like a patronising git.
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9 comments:

  1. JRSM12:17 am

    That's fantastic! It makes me want to sign all my art books with unlikely inscriptions ('Dear Ted, for all the memories, Lenny D V').

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  2. Grey Area6:04 am

    Put the Goya on Ebay, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it will sell.

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  3. Sam Jordison8:50 am

    The Goya signature is great. I'd be tempted to buy it myself...

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  4. sue rosly12:01 pm

    This made me laugh and laugh. Thank you.
    Sue

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  5. Steerforth12:28 pm

    That's what I like to hear (or read).

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  6. Brian Busby1:39 pm

    Your encounter with the signed Goya reminds me of an uncomfortable evening during which an elderly relative made a great show of presenting me with an inscribed collection of Tennyson's verse... published in 1900. Can't begin to tell you the acrobatics I went through to avoid bursting the old dear's bubble (and to avoid coming off like a patronising git).

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  7. PearlFog8:03 pm

    I am an avid reader of your wonderful blog and as a result have found myself furtively shaking books in second-hand shops to see if anything interesting falls out. The best I've done so far is a couple of old Parisian train-stubs in a beat-up copy of 'Dr Zhivago' although when I was sorting through some of my own old books to give away recently, I did find some little forgotten mementoes of my own past. I also found, as I was looking through some second-hand poetry books, what appears to be a signed copy of 'Touch' by Thom Gunn. The fact that I bought the book in Cambridge makes me think that it's at least possible that the signature is genuine. I'm very sorry to trouble you for your professional expertise but I don't really know who to ask about it, and I was wondering if you might possibly know how I could find out how much, if anything, it could be worth. Thank you so much and thank you for all the pleasure your blog has brought me, the adventures of Derek have been particularly touching. Best, Erin (Sorry this is all one long paragraph; I'm using my brother's laptop and the return key is broken!)

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  8. Steerforth9:07 pm

    Thank you for your kind comments about the blog.

    A good place to start is either www.bookfinder.co.uk or www.abebooks.co.uk.

    AbeBooks have a very good search screen where you can narrow the fields to only include signed copies.

    I hope this helps.

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  9. PearlFog7:16 pm

    I'll give that a try, thanks very much for your help :o)

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