2012 Book Collecting Year in Review

One year ago, I wrote up a summary of my collecting finds from 2011.  I wrote that "2011 brought me down to needing just one first printing Nancy Drew dust jacket and one first printing Nancy Drew book for the original 56 books."

In 2012, I finally acquired the first printing book for the Nancy Drew book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, so I now have all 56 first printing books.  I still need the first printing dust jacket for The Secret of the Old Clock.  I do not expect that to change anytime soon.

Early in the year, I purchased a signed photo of Harriet Adams along with a letter from the Stratemeyer Syndicate to a fan.

I was thrilled when I found two different examples of the Nancy Drew 1940s Style Library Binding.

Nancy Drew #1 Old Clock Library Binding
Nancy Drew Clue in the Diary Library Edition

I was just as thrilled when someone contacted me to share photos of the 1940s Style Library Binding that she owns.  More of them are out there waiting for me to find them!  Perhaps I can find some of them in 2013.

I read a very special book, Mystery of the Witch's Bridge, in June.  I highly recommend it to all series book fans.  It's that good.

Also in June, one of the editors of Country Living Magazine contacted me, wanting to borrow a few of my Judy Bolton library editions.  I was pleased that someone other than me was able to see the patterned bindings as being neat decorative pieces.  My books were photographed and made an appearance in the magazine.

In October, I upgraded almost all of my Beverly Gray and Adventure Girls Burt editions.  I bought a Connie Blair boxed set.

Also in October, I purchased a large number of Three Investigators hardcover editions.  The plan was to sell them, since I have never been interested in the Three Investigators series.  However, I knew that I had never had this many Three Investigators books all at once and that I would be foolish to sell them without reading at least one of them.  My plan was to make a decision by January. 

It occurred to me this weekend that I needed to make that decision immediately, so I took the time to read the first book, The Secret of Terror Castle.  I must say that I did enjoy it.  I am already reading the second book, and then I will decide whether to continue or to read something else.  I have decided that I simply cannot sell the Three Investigators books at this time.  I plan to read at least a number of them and maybe all of them.

Nagging in the back of my mind is the fact that I never finished reading the original and revised texts Nancy Drew books again.  I published my reviews up to The Secret of the Wooden Lady.  I read The Clue of the Black Keys, but I did not have enough thoughts about it to write up much of anything.  That was where I stopped.

I cannot force myself to write up a review of a book when the thoughts do not come easily.  That's when writing for this blog seems like writing a required book report for school.  That's no fun and why sometimes my blog posts become infrequent.  I can only write something when I am in the mood and it comes easily to me.  Otherwise, I cannot do it. 

A possible solution to my Nancy Drew problem is to resume reading them and then perhaps write combined reviews that cover several books when I lack enough thoughts for one post to cover an entire book.  If I were to do that, then I would be able to keep going.

In 2012, I purchased 21 books to read with the Kindle App on my iPad.  Including the books I purchased in 2011, I have a total of 55 books on my iPad.  Depending upon the size of the actual books, those 55 books would have taken up a least four to five feet of shelf space and possibly a good bit more than that.

Prior to my purchase of an iPad, I only bought a few modern books occasionally, and this was because I did not care to waste shelf space on modern books that will not have any value for several decades.  I am always short on shelf space for the 4,000+ vintage books that I own, so I do not wish to take up space with bulky modern hardcover books.  Until I purchased an iPad, I was extremely selective about purchasing any modern books since I did not want them cluttering up the house. I am now less selective and have enjoyed many good books in the last two years that I would not otherwise have read.

Tomorrow will be my fourth anniversary on Bonanza.  I have now been on Bonanza 25% as long as I have been on eBay.  It's kind of amazing to me that four years have passed.

In 2013, I hope to sell on eBay somewhat more consistently than I did in 2012 so that I will not endanger my top-rated seller status every few months.  I will continue to maintain my Bonanza booth and add new and interesting books whenever I can.

I will maintain this blog with at least one new post per week and two per week whenever I can.  Several years ago, my goal was two to three posts per week, but for the last year I have found that pace to be quite difficult.  Much more time and effort goes into the average post than most people realize.  The most informative blog posts can take several hours to create.  And this is why I simply must be interested in writing about a subject, or the motivation disappears.

I appreciate each and every single person who reads this blog.  I have no idea how many of you are out there.  I know that I have 80 public followers here, around 150 people following my Facebook, and 101 people following through Google Reader.  I'm sure there is overlap between those numbers, and I'm sure that some people instead follow through bookmarks. 

I especially want to thank those of you who "like" my posts on Facebook, make comments on Facebook, make comments here, or communicate with me privately.  I know that the vast majority of readers will never communicate with me in any fashion, and I am fine with that.  But the few people who take the time to provide some feedback are the ones who keep me motivated and let me know that people enjoy what I write.  It means a lot to me!