Showing posts with label Hardy Boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hardy Boys. Show all posts

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Book Update: January 2012 Books

JANUARY 2012 BOOKS

I got a large number of books this month so I will not post individual covers for all of them. I got 3 of them from the Quality Paperback Book Club, 1 from Goodreads in the first giveaway that I won (I have entered many giveaways there but this was the first time I won one, it helped that the author was giving away 25 copies) and the rest from Ebay.

HARDY BOYS MYSTERIES: 
Many know that the author of these books Franklin W. Dixon was actually a group of authors for the publishing company, but that is a story that has been told before by others and can easily be found by a web search.These first four books I got from one seller on Ebay for and average of $3.00 a piece (some auctions and some fixed price I think) they were ordered in December and I think originally shipped in late December/early January but the post office failed to leave one of those little "orange" pick up slips. Fortunately you can still pick up packages showing you valid photo ID to prove you are who you say you are and you are authorized to pick up mail for your address. I got it 10 days after they had originally tried to deliver it.

USPS "Orange" pick-up slip

Hardy Boys #1 The Tower Treasure
So since I'm trying to rebuild my collection from my childhood, or at least some of the highlights I got the hardback copies of these books. They are the 1960s or early to mid 1970s versions at the newest. I don't plan on getting any newer printings unless the original publication was later for those later numbers. Anyway the Series library numbers I got are 1, 4, 15, 16. These editions are numbered only on the spine, later editions put the number on the front cover. Later still they added a "flashlight" banner to the top of the front cover. I found an excellent identification website The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page that can help you determine which edition you may have. It might not be perfect but it helped me tons.  Anyway the titles of what I got:

Hardy Boys #16 A Figure in Hiding


With the exception of "number one" I had previously owned the others, I even had two different editions of number 16.




Next I had gotten three books from QPB:

Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long, MD with Paul Perry
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer 

The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson - When I first saw this book in the catalog I thought I already had it because I have a hardback edition of another book titled Vikings by Magnus Magnusson that has a similar cover.


THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E

Next I am building a library of television-tie-in books from a TV series I barely saw as a kid. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which starred Robert Vaughn, David McCallum (who plays "Duckie" on NCIS), and Leo G. Carroll. The trick to this series is I also plan on getting the UK versions of some of the books which have a different numbering system and sadly didn't publish as many of them there. I am concentrating on getting the US editions first then perhaps as I can find them get the UK ones. There is an excellent website (from a guy in the UK that has a bunch of series listed on his home page) to see the covers of all these books The Man From UNCLE Books Gallery

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  (later printings listed it as #1 and titled "The Thousand Coffins Affair" this edition only has that title on the inside) by Michael Avallone
02 - The Doomsday Affair by Harry Whittington
03 - The Copenhagen Affair by John Oram
04 - The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel
05 - The Mad Scientist Affair by John T. Phillifent
06 - The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel
07 - The Radioactive Camel Affair by Peter Leslie
08 - The Monster Wheel Affair by David McDaniel
09 - The Diving Dames Affair by Peter Leslie

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Affair of the Goldrunners' Gold by Brandon Keith


The book I got as a freebie from the Goodreads giveaway by the author is a Sci-fi story Death Drop by Sean Allen. That is about all I know about it right now. I moved it to the top of my "to-be-read" list. When I am finished with it I will post a review there as soon as I can. Oh and it was signed "All my best" by the author..

 The last minute addition is just a small one, well a big one a big little one actually. Journey To The Center Of The Earth - The Fiery Foe by Paul S. Newman a "Big Little Book". When I was a kid my brother had a copy of this book. I'm not sure if he snagged it years ago upon move out of the family home or if my mom had put it into a giveaway box years later. I think it was the former. Anyway this copy I got from Ebay for $8 (the shipping was free) it is in very good condition but has that really musty old book smell. I might try that putting it in a plastic container with an unscented clothes dryer sheet to see if that trick works I don't want to try the kitty litter trick as I have no cats and would feel strange buying kitty litter. LOL.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Book Update: December 2011 Books

DECEMBER 2011 BOOKS
I got a bunch of books back in December pretty much all of them were through Ebay. I even got two editions of the same book (originally for the different covers). I noticed after I received the second one that in addition to the title being switched a bit there was a chapter that had been updated/changed with the second edition. So cool and all that for double dipping that one.

As I mentioned last month (Book Update: November Books) this book Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner was on order and due to arrive in December which it did. I also mentioned that it is for the Sci-Fi Adventure Book Club I belong to at Goodreads. We start reading then discussing this book in March (September is another Doctor Who book).

For who knows how many years World Distributors LTD has been cranking out hardcover annuals for Doctor Who. In the UK the tradition of Annuals for TV shows is very popular, even when shows end up getting cancelled after only one year (and thus one annual).

Lookie another Doctor Who Annual from World Distributors LTD. This one I noticed is highlighted as an example of the different editions WD LTD publishes. They produce a local UK edition that gets branded with the year on the front cover and spine and also on the title page inside, plus a unit price is put in the corner on the title page. They also make an international version that doesn't have the unit price on the cover page and doesn't have the year printed on the outside cover. I noticed I have the international version.

Just a Pun little book published in 1962 edited by Robert Margolin. The Peter Pauper Press also printed another little Pun book I think with the title "The Liitle Pun Book" with a red cover I'm certain that my family had a copy of I think we also had a copy of this pun book as well, but I'm not 100% sure.

This is the autobiography of Pat Benatar. As a Benatar fan I had to get this. Somewhere I've got the only other two books on Pat Benatar that had been published. I'm not sure exactly where those are right now.

NCIS Series by Mel Odom
These next three books are part of a series of books that follow a team of NCIS agents. The series is not associated with the TV show in anyway. I do think that the show inspired the author Mel Odom to write these books. Odom apparently has military background and according to his bio on the back cover he has a background in forensic science. The books are published by Tyndale House Publisher's Inc. which specializes in Christian Fiction.

Paid In Blood (NCIS Series #1)
In this first NCIS book by Mel Odom we meet a team of NCIS agents who are based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Most of the characters had military careers before transferring to NCIS. The team leader Will Coburn has to balance family problems with his workload. The team has to track down terrorists who are into smuggling not only drugs but nuclear weapons. This book does tend to get a bit preachy, more so than the second book in the series does so far (I'm about 40% though reading the second book at the time of posting this). I enjoyed this book even though it had nothing to do with the NCIS TV show. The only thing I didn't like about it seems to be a common complaint of it being a bit too preachy.

Blood Evidence (NCIS Series #2)
So far this second NCIS book is just as good as the first and it isn't as preachy as the first one was, but does have a little bit of the characters thanking God and praying for stuff. This time the team is involved in the reopening of a case of a murdered 16 year old girl whose mother is a Naval Officer and stepfather is now a big political figure on the rise. At the time of this posting I haven't finished reading this one yet.

Blood Lines (NCIS Series #3)
The third book in the NCIS series. I don't know much about the plot to this one yet I'll find out soon enough when I start reading it.

City Of The Dead (Seven Wonders Novel 2)
This is the second book in the Seven Wonders Series of books by T.L. Higley. This one takes place in ancient Egypt and centers around the main architect for the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is a first person narration which at first annoyed me some but I got used to it as I read through it. Even though I had heard this book is Christian Fiction it doesn't seem like it. The closest it seemed to get is when they talk about a group of people that are of the one and talk about one god. To me that didn't seem preachy but it could be considered a veil to Christianity, except that the time this story takes place these people would most likely be Jews.

This is one of those "old" books by Scholastic Books Published in 1977 this book tells some of the behind the scenes of the television series of The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew Spin-Off Series.

This is the same book as the book above except that the chapter on the actress playing Nancy Drew has been updated changed. It also has a different cover. It also was printed in 1977.

This book by John Baxter is simply one man's journey of book collecting. I am currently only a little less than 20% though reading this book. It tends to get a bit slow, especially when he goes on a tangent about a certain author or a book seller or collector.

The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook
This is one I had as a kid and I'm pretty sure I read it at that time. It was one of the "hand-me-down" books from my brother(s). I recall they had 20some Hardy Boy books and when I started getting into them I added about 10 more or so to the collection. I think the originals from the collection went with my brother and his wife ages ago. I decided recently to try to rebuild a collection of them. More Hardy Boys fun for January. Anyway this book is more sort of a reference type book that tells how some aspects of police business is handled or was handled back in the late 50s early 60s. There have been a few updates over the years I think I also had the 1974 edition of this book at one time.