Tom, we've gotta meet . . .
FWIW: Stephen King, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, 1982 LE hardback by Donald Grant, Pub. First Ed, First Printing, signed, and in strict NM condition. I believe there were only 500 or 1000 of these issued. Bought it directly from Donald Grant when it was published in 1982 for $20-something. I've listed it 3 times on E-bay, but have always pulled the plug before completing a deal (pissing off quite a few folks, incidently). I've had offers of as much as $2.5K, but I just can't part with it.
I generally am not a rare or signed edition book collector, just a collector of books in good quality formats. Me and Amazon are on really good terms - and have been since they opened their e-doors. I bet I've spent more on books and bookcases over the years than many folks spend on their vehicles. When I'm gone, my daughter is going to inherit one hell of a library. Good thing she loves to read.
The Dosadi Experiment is your favorite of all time? I've gotta go back and re-read it - it's been 30 years. I have a hard time naming favorites - it often depends on what I've read recently. I read McMurtry's Lonesome Dove the year it was published in '85, before it won the Pulitzer and was made into the big-deal mini-series (and eventually a virtual franchise), and I've generally stuck with that when I'm asked about my favorite book.
Bee, my SF library has most of the catalogs for: King, Asimov, Heinelin, Powers, Le Guin, Willis (my favorite SF author, actually), Wolfe, McDevitt, Niven, Gaiman, Bujold, Ellison, Bradbury, Cherryh, Martin, Pratchett, Stross, Reynolds, Stephenson, and probably a dozen others. In recent years I've been building a collection of the classics, old and new. Lotta Hemingway, Dickens, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Lawrence, Forster, and Dostoyevsky along with new classic authors like McCarthy and Doctorow. And of course, for the crime/noir buff in me, Chandler, Hammett, Mcdonald, and the mandatory Complete Sherlock Holmes.
Steve, this topic might deserve it's own thread if more literary types pop up!
