London Trip 3, Waterstones, New Arrivals

Waterstones is a UK bookstore chain, similar to Chpaters/Indigo Books here in Canada. However there is one main difference from most chain outlets, each store may have slightly different holdings. The store near our hotel, described (by them) as " Waterstones Gower Street is Europe's largest academic/specialist range bookshop." is housed in a beautiful old building it had new books, including a large SF section with second hand SF paperback titles interfiled, a large section of used Penguin books on the main floor, and antiquarian books and an art gallery in the basement.

https://www.waterstones.com/bookshops/gower-street

I began my collecting with Arkham House books, and while I have not purchased any of their older titles for a number of years, I could not resist The Traveling Grave by L.P. Hartley. Today Hartley is probably best known for the quote "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." from his mainstream novel The Go-Between published in 1953.

Arkham House, 1948, cover by Frank Utpatel.

I also could not resist The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel, (who had several short story collections published by Arkham House) This novel of the end of the world is credited as the basis for the 1959 film, The World, the Flesh and the Devil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World,_the_Flesh_and_the_Devil_(1959_film)

World Publishing Company 1946 (1901), cover by Soshensky

Upstairs I found several paperbacks, including another Ian Miller.

The wrap-around version, 

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/4/42/WRGMSMJJWK1981.jpg

A Merril anthology, 1959 with a beautiful Richard Powers cover. 

My friend Doug has been recommending Schmitz, 

this edition is from 1979, cover by Tim White.

London Trip 2, SKOOB BOOKS, New Arrivals

More goodies from Skoob books.

I loved Niven's Gil Hamilton of ARM short stories, so I was 

excited to find he had done a novel. But I found it overly 

complicated for the length, with a poorly developed ending. 

But this Orbit edition has a great cover by Peter Jones.

A version of the full wrap-around cover photographed by 

the Unsubscriber can be found here.

https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/from-front-to-back-its-the-return-of-the-wraparound-cover/

The City of the Sun. 1980 cover by Tim White

I have read Shaw excellent short story "Light of Other Days"

so I grabbed this book on "slow Glass", cover uncredited.

How could I resist, Dick and a tentacled horror, 

cover by Gino d'Achille.

This copy of the Star Surgeon which Helen found for me, 

has a great but uncredited cover illustration. 

I loved everything about these two Pan editions, especially

the covers which are sadly uncredited.

No matter where I go Frank is there. 

The Dragon in the Sea, NEL 1969, cover Bruce Pennington.

Wrap-around version; 

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/91/THDRGNNTHS1969.jpg

I was hoping I might find copies of Ian Miller's covers for 

Lovecraft's books but I am very happy with this Herbert.

The Unsubscriber has published a number of posts

on his love for the cover art of Ian Miller. This link

contains a photo of the full wrap-around version of this title.

https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/tag/ian-miller/

London Trip 1, SKOOB BOOKS, New Arrivals

We are back from a lovely trip to London. I stated before I left that I hoped to find some SF Penguins, however while I found a lot of older Penguin books for sale, I did not find many of the specific titles or cover artists I hoped to find. I also did not find any SF titles from the British SF publishers Digit or Badger books. While we did visit a number of interesting used book stores, only one, the wonderful SKOOB Books had an extensive SF section. You go in the main floor entrance and down the stairs and yeah!! books. After 3 or 4 visits, it was not far from our hotel, I had amassed a large number of British editions to bedevil my efforts at packing, along with the heavy guides and art books from the museums and galleries we visited. Thank you Helen for the photos of the shop.

http://www.skoob.com/

While this will probably stretch to several post, lets start with some highlights. If you had asked me to list some paperbacks I hoped to find, the first two (below,) could well have been one and two on the list.

I have long lusted after this Bruce Pennington cover for Space, Time and Nathaniel from The New English library edition, and the stories I have read so far have been very good,

Many years ago, when I was more of a SF reader and less of a collector, a very good friend, (now sadly deceased) gave me a copy of Solar Wind a book on the SF stylings of Peter Jones and I have loved Jones' gaunt skull-faced aliens ever since. This is the Jones cover I particularly wanted and I know I will think of Rod whenever I pick it up.

This Boyd title with a cover by Peter Cross, was a book I hoped to find and The Kraken Wakes is my favourite Wyndham. Cover by Denis Piper

Another book I wanted the minute I saw the cover, in this case on the blog of the Unsubscriber.
https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/from-the-library-of-the-unsubscriber-no-19-cover-oddities/
The cover artist is uncredited, any ideas?

I had never seen this edition of The Sirens of Titan (fifth impression, 1975) with a cover by Jim Burns but I knew I was bringing it home the minute I picked it up. 

To see the cover in it's full wrap around glory try

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/2c/THSRNSFTTB1975.jpg