You know you're a nerd when you Love--yes, capital L-O-V-E, old books. And when I say old books I don't mean books that were written before the dawn of time. I mean books that were PRINTED before you were born. I recently finished reading A. A. Attanasio's 'The Serpent and the Grail'--good, but didn't quite live up to its predecessors--IMHO, so last night I picked something new to read: "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke, arguably my favorite author of all time.
'The City and the Stars' by all records was published in 1956--though, most perplexingly my copy has copyright dates of 1939, 1940, and 1967. (If someone can figure that one out, by all means let me know--my only guess is that Mr. Clarke copyrighted the work before it was ever formally picked up by a publisher, but that's just a guess on my part.) In any case, this book--picked up from a second-hand book shop many, many years ago--was printed at least a decade before I was born, which is somehow very cool. There's just something about the smell of a musty book, go figure. I love the yellowed pages and the scent of the old ink--and the story's pretty good so far too, of course.
Other than that, I still haven't found my good camera, but I got one of my old, crappy ones working and took a picture of Jitterbug. (See Below) Behold! Alien Cat! No, that is NOT a manip. The flash did that. Then Jitterbug came up next to the couch and looked at me like 'do that again! It was so cool!' haha. Cats are so weird, but I just adore my boys--can't help myself.
2 comments:
City of the Stars is not the original story. He wrote an earlier version of the story in 1939, Against The Fall of Night - and it was originally published in a magazine in 1948.
It was then published as a book in 1953.
He published City of the Stars in 1956.
Then he expanded on it again, publishing a related work called: The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night - which was written in 1967, and published in 1968.
That's about as clear as I can make it.
Aaah, I see, it makes sense now! I love Arthur C. Clarke, but I was perplexed as hell when I had a copyright date later than when all the usual sources said it was published. Thanks for the clarification, Al. The mystery is solved...but I still don't think the book needed 3 copyright dates on it...
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