One doesn't simply "walk into Powell's for one book..."
$550 later...
("They come in SETS?")
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going into Powell's. You step into the store, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
I fucking love Powell's. I love the selection and the used books and the atmosphere and Portland, and really everything about it
It's honestly one of my favorite places in the world.
I got to visit Powell’s once when I was visiting family; absolutely magical. I too didn’t know they came in sets! Research must be done.
Also shout out to your Dragonlance collection!
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_History_of_Middle-earth_2023-24_Box_Sets
The 15 volumes in total are divided into four sets. They are to be published separately throughout 2024.
Set 1
1. The Silmarillion
2. Unfinished Tales
3. The Book of Lost Tales: Part One
4. The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two
Set 2
1. The Lays of Beleriand
2. The Shaping of Middle-earth
3. The Lost Road and Other Writings
Set 3
1. The Return of the Shadow
2. The Treason of Isengard
3. The War of the Ring
4. Sauron Defeated
Set 4
1. Morgoth's Ring
2. The War of the Jewels
3. The Peoples of Middle-earth
4. Index
- reversible dust jackets.
Ugh. That’s awesome. Gotta have them now! Mainly because I dont even have (or have heard of) most of those! Interesting that Children of Húrin isn't in any of these sets. I feel like it was a long enough book alone to not have been incorporated into one of these…
Edit Appears to be a 5th and final set, outside "The History of Middle Earth":
The Children of Húrin
Beren and Lúthien
The Fall of Gondolin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0358003911
Significantly less expensive than the others. Those also appear to be the final three books edited by Christopher Tolkien.
Three more books follow:
The Nature of Middle-earth, edited by Carl F. Hostetter.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Nature_of_Middle-earth
"Its many texts discuss a variety of topics related to Middle-earth, such as its "nature" and landscapes, the characteristics of different races, theology, and many other miscellaneous matters in Tolkien's legendarium. Most of them were previously unpublished material, but some had been already published in the linguistic journals Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar."
The Fall of Númenor, edited by Brian Sibley.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Fall_of_N%C3%BAmenor
"The texts were previously published in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, and The Nature of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien and Carl F. Hostetter. No new material by Tolkien is presented in this book."
The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, edited by Peter Grybauskas.
"The book presents for the first time Tolkien's own prose translation of "The Battle of Maldon", a 10-century Old English poem about a real world battle, together with the poem The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, an imaginary sequel to the Battle. Also included is a previously unpublished lecture "The Tradition of Versification in Old English", which deals with the nature of poetic tradition."
Looks like parts of it are in this set, but this book is it's own thing.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Children_of_H%C3%BArin
"A brief version of the story formed the base of Chapter 21 of The Silmarillion, setting the tale in the context of the wars of Beleriand. Although based on the same texts used to complete the new book, Christopher Tolkien abridged the tale to avoid overcharging his edition.
Other incomplete versions have been published in previous publications:
The "Narn i Hîn Húrin" in Unfinished Tales.
Items in The History of Middle-earth series, including:
"Turambar and the Foalókë", from The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two
"The Lay of the Children of Húrin" (a narrative poem), from The Lays of Beleriand
None of these writings forms a complete and mature narrative. The published Children of Húrin is essentially a synthesis of the Narn and of the account found in The Silmarillion."
What other books do you recommend?
Ho boy... how much time do you have? ;)
If you look on the shelf just below Tolkien, you'll see Folio Society editions of The Princess Bride and American Gods.
Not only are those editions GLORIOUS, it's really hard to go wrong with ANYTHING by the Folio Society. They're kind of like to books what the Criterion Editon is to movies.
(I'm still waiting on them to publish the last book in the James Bond run, Octopussy, then I'll buy that whole set). Apparently hung up by problems with the artist. :( She got caught plagiarising stuff for Wizards of the Coast.
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/catalogsearch/result/?q=ian+fleming
Their edition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is out of print, but you can still get it on the secondary market:
https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/chitty-chitty-bang-bang.html
Other than that?
Let's see...
Science fiction, it's hard to beat the Fuzzy books by H. Beam Piper:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49377-fuzzy-sapiens
(stick to the three originals by Piper)
The Matador series by Steve Perry:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MatadorSeries
Really, read these in publication order, not chronological order.
Fantasy/Horror, the classic of the genre, for me, is the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, 8 books proper, but it branches out and touches so many others of King's works. Stephen King shared universe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series)
Rumor has it a new book is coming.
Also Fantasy/Horror, the six book Night Watch books by Sergei Lukyanenko.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(Lukyanenko_novel)
I hesitate slightly to reccomend these books, because as good as they are, the author has kind of gone off the deep end supporting Russia in the war with Ukraine.
All six books were written before Russia invaded Crimea, so it doesn't color the text in any way, but Lukyanenko is of Ukrainian heritage and has now fully drunk the Russian kool-aid so if you have a hard time separating the author from the books, this can be a tough read.
As long as I'm talking about books in translation, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series by Carlos Ruiz Zafon are all quite amazing.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/9124283592
See if the synopsis for the first book doesn't grab the hell out of you:
"At the first light of dawn in postwar Barcelona, a bookseller leads his motherless son to a mysterious crypt called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This labyrinthine sanctuary houses the books that have lost their owners, books that are no longer remembered by anyone. It is here that ten-year-old Daniel Sempere pulls a single book—The Shadow of the Wind—off of the dusty shelves to adopt as his own. With one fateful turn of a page, he begins an adventure that will unravel another man’s tragedy and solve a mystery that has already taken many lives and will shape his entire future."
For non-fiction? I dearly love the travel books by Redmond O'Hanlon:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redmond_O%27Hanlon
Into the Heart of Borneo (1984)
In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon (1988)
Congo Journey (1996), American edition: No Mercy: A Journey Into the Heart of the Congo (1997)[9]
Trawler (2005)
It sucks that I can only upvote you once. Thanks buddy.
Have you been to More Books, around the corner from the Powell's on Hawthorne? They don't want you to use your cellphone, are anti-wifi, only accept cash and use a handwritten ledger - all of which I find quite charming in a bookstore.
They had a ~100 year old typewritten compilation of translated Chinese sex jokes.
Not much fantasy/sci-fi but if you like books it's got a real 'living my best life in my bookstore' kind of vibe that you might enjoy.
I think that's "David Morrison's Books" now. Same vibe:
Ah! Yep, definitely the same place!
That's been my last couple weeks lol. I mostly read audiobooks, but I decided to buy a couple favorites just to have actual copies of for some reason or other and just didn't stop.
Except for some in the third row all the circled stuff are "new" purchases. And I still have a couple more in other sections and a couple more still in the mail.
Why does everyone here know a random bookshop in portland?
This feels like fake grass.
Not exactly random. It's THE bookstore in Portland.
https://www.powells.com/locations/powells-city-of-books
Also, if you want to avoid giving Amazon money:
It's HUGE and it's a tourist attraction of sorts. When friends visit they always ask if we can go to Powell's. If you search for things to do in Portland or even grab some tourist pamphlets, it's typically listed.
I put it on my to do list when I went to Portland a while back. Spent several hours there. Had to fly home with books. It would be dangerous if I lived in Portland.
Have you been there? It's huge. A book lover could spend hours there.
Days.
Tourist attraction! My family went there when I was a teenager, it was nice! I remember it smelled nice.
Technically you bought one book and left with one book. Had you walked into Powell’s for one and only one book you would have failed. You can’t buy a set without buying one.
The sets aren't the book I came for. :)