Two Months, Three Days

The title of this blog entry refers to how long I was able to restrain myself from buying My Brother's Keeper by Marcia Davenport. The struggle was a long one, but now it's at an end. I grew tired of my frugal, practical self. She's no match against my inner biblio-barbarian who won the battle and won big.

How big? Not only did I buy a copy of this out-of-print 1954 novel, I bought one in collectible condition. A true first edition from Scribner's with the "A" on the copyright page indicating this. Did I mention the terrific dust jacket? Although I really love that pulp-fictiony paperback cover from Cardinal Books, this dust jacket is subtly brilliant in regards to the action in the novel.

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The reasoning behind such extravagance is that if I should hate the book, I'll be able to resell at the same price or at a profit. Still, spending that much money on a book makes me feel a little shaky. I'm more of a reader than a collector. I usually prefer volume to quality.

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Now that the die is cast and the book is in the mail, I'm grimly concocting different ways to ensure that I will actually "deserve" this book. The list is a little on the twisted and ascetic side, but two ways I can readily share are that I must eat a lot of ramen as well as other Dickensian-type meals to make up for the purchase, and I must blog about the book in great detail after I've read it.

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Ooops. I meant to orchestrate some suffering for my purchase, but damn, blogging's fun! Looks like the biblio-barbarian strikes again.