I don't take a lot of pictures when I travel. I don't know if it's because I'm very observant and detail-oriented that I try to take in everything and that I've got a vault for a memory, but I don't often take pictures because I keep them all in my head.
Instead I remember my days by the books I bought. The first day in Amsterdam coincided with the book sale on the Spui. I was so early that I had to wait around, but some good books were found.
Lafcadio Hearn "Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan"
Ernest Hemingway "A Farewell to Arms" Modern Library 1st Edition in immaculate condition with dust jacket and protective cover, plus no marks of any kind inside the book
Martin Gardner "The Night Is Large: Collected Essays 1938 - 1995"
"Lovers, Mates, and Strange Bedfellows: Old World Folktales" Arranged and Edited by James R. Foster
The last book is a sort of tongue-in-cheek collection of folktales that center around love, love, and more love that the book's preface calls "a precious part of our literary heritage" and that "no liberties" have been taken with the substance of the narratives. The volume contains 40 folktales with titles such as "The Girl Who Was Half-Married", "The Perspiring Lover", and "Hacon Grizzlebeard".
Definitely an interesting addition to my lifelong obsession with building a collection of fairytales & folktales to rival the Opies.
I actually bought all three of the books from the same bookseller on the Spui that morning, but because I was so early, I passed three times before I had spent as much money as I wanted to on my first day of vacation.
Martin Gardner for those who aren't familiar was a fascinating person. He wrote often about mathematics and science and had a wide array of interests and talents. I learned of Gardner from his book "My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles" as a teenager, and was later amused to learn that the same math geek whose puzzles I so enjoyed had annotated Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", which somehow managed to debunk and add nonsense to the original book.
Some of the more amusingly titled essays to be found in this collection include: "Klingon and Other Artificial Languages", "Puzzles in Ulysees", and "The Significance of Nothing". All the essays are worth reading and like I said Gardner is a great read, perhaps the closest that America ever came to having their own Borges (Henry Miller doesn't count).
For those familiar with Lafacdio Hearn's "Kwaidan" and how little there seems to be of his work in English nowadays, you'll understand why it's always "yes" to adding some more Hearn to the library. Few foreigners ever lived abroad anywhere and produced such beautiful writing as a result. I would put Hearn slightly above Pierre Loti and just below Karen Blixen, but she has long been one of my favourite writers (I discovered her at age 10).
And to prove I am both pretentious about my literature and superficial I bought Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" because it was a beautiful edition, but just between vous et moi I have never read anything by Hemingway from start to finish save "The Old Man and The Sea", which I loved, yet I can't go more than 4 pages into Hemingway without thinking of something else I'd rather be reading or doing.
Near the University of Amsterdam there is a passage. If you walk through it to take a shortcut to the Oudezijds Achterburgwal when the booksellers aren't set up inside it's usually rather bleak, but that particular day I scored a free copy of G.K. Chesteron's "The Complete Father Brown". On another visit, this time when the booksellers were set up almost lost the chance to bring home a copy of John Fante's "Full of Life". It'd been put down for a moment, and there was another interested party, but I hovered and the moment he said no, I snatched it back.
So yes, don't mess with me when it comes to books. I don't like to let them get away. Book purchasing is not like sport fishing to me. I have a whole ritual of search, purchase, and then a gloating period over good coffee.
Five books bought, and one found for free. I thought there would be more but my favourite bookshop in Amsterdam wasn't open any of the times I passed by, so who knows what goodies I missed?
So since I've no real pictures from Amsterdam (though I have a sneaking suspicion some were taken), here are the books.
Instead I remember my days by the books I bought. The first day in Amsterdam coincided with the book sale on the Spui. I was so early that I had to wait around, but some good books were found.
Lafcadio Hearn "Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan"
Ernest Hemingway "A Farewell to Arms" Modern Library 1st Edition in immaculate condition with dust jacket and protective cover, plus no marks of any kind inside the book
Martin Gardner "The Night Is Large: Collected Essays 1938 - 1995"
"Lovers, Mates, and Strange Bedfellows: Old World Folktales" Arranged and Edited by James R. Foster
The last book is a sort of tongue-in-cheek collection of folktales that center around love, love, and more love that the book's preface calls "a precious part of our literary heritage" and that "no liberties" have been taken with the substance of the narratives. The volume contains 40 folktales with titles such as "The Girl Who Was Half-Married", "The Perspiring Lover", and "Hacon Grizzlebeard".
Definitely an interesting addition to my lifelong obsession with building a collection of fairytales & folktales to rival the Opies.
I actually bought all three of the books from the same bookseller on the Spui that morning, but because I was so early, I passed three times before I had spent as much money as I wanted to on my first day of vacation.
Martin Gardner for those who aren't familiar was a fascinating person. He wrote often about mathematics and science and had a wide array of interests and talents. I learned of Gardner from his book "My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles" as a teenager, and was later amused to learn that the same math geek whose puzzles I so enjoyed had annotated Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", which somehow managed to debunk and add nonsense to the original book.
Some of the more amusingly titled essays to be found in this collection include: "Klingon and Other Artificial Languages", "Puzzles in Ulysees", and "The Significance of Nothing". All the essays are worth reading and like I said Gardner is a great read, perhaps the closest that America ever came to having their own Borges (Henry Miller doesn't count).
For those familiar with Lafacdio Hearn's "Kwaidan" and how little there seems to be of his work in English nowadays, you'll understand why it's always "yes" to adding some more Hearn to the library. Few foreigners ever lived abroad anywhere and produced such beautiful writing as a result. I would put Hearn slightly above Pierre Loti and just below Karen Blixen, but she has long been one of my favourite writers (I discovered her at age 10).
And to prove I am both pretentious about my literature and superficial I bought Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" because it was a beautiful edition, but just between vous et moi I have never read anything by Hemingway from start to finish save "The Old Man and The Sea", which I loved, yet I can't go more than 4 pages into Hemingway without thinking of something else I'd rather be reading or doing.
Near the University of Amsterdam there is a passage. If you walk through it to take a shortcut to the Oudezijds Achterburgwal when the booksellers aren't set up inside it's usually rather bleak, but that particular day I scored a free copy of G.K. Chesteron's "The Complete Father Brown". On another visit, this time when the booksellers were set up almost lost the chance to bring home a copy of John Fante's "Full of Life". It'd been put down for a moment, and there was another interested party, but I hovered and the moment he said no, I snatched it back.
So yes, don't mess with me when it comes to books. I don't like to let them get away. Book purchasing is not like sport fishing to me. I have a whole ritual of search, purchase, and then a gloating period over good coffee.
Five books bought, and one found for free. I thought there would be more but my favourite bookshop in Amsterdam wasn't open any of the times I passed by, so who knows what goodies I missed?
So since I've no real pictures from Amsterdam (though I have a sneaking suspicion some were taken), here are the books.
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