Your Best Shelf: A Top Ten List and Open Invitation

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Good stuff. Regarding 1984…”just read the newspaper…” Indeed! Subscribed

[@GenreBooks23]

Thanks!

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

What a great idea! Thanks for tagging me, Gavin. I will need to give this one a lot of thought. That looks just like the original edition of The Hobbit that I had--probably around 1970 or 1971--before I received the box set in 1973. "For an edition of 1984, just read the newspaper." That would be funny if it wasn't so horrifyingly true.

[@GenreBooks23]

Thanks Pat, looking forward to that wishlist!

[@buckocean7616]

Yep. That line hit me as well. Maybe you're familiar with this old Chinese saying ... " May you be cursed to live in interesting times." We're certainly going through some "interesting times". Stay hydrated and well. ☮

[@alex_unabridged]

Fantastic idea and video! And cool list -- you've got some great picks on there! You've definitely got me thinking about what would be on my list -- am going to have to do my own video 👍

[@GenreBooks23]

Cheers Alex, and we all want to hear your list!

[@buckocean7616]

Great concept for all book lovers. I just came from MKV's vid. Both of you have some great choices. I do have that Ballentine paperback box set. But it's held together by scotch tape and habit. I just can't bear to part with it.

[@GenreBooks23]

Thanks for stopping by, and I don’t blame you not wanting to part with that boxed set!

[@stuartgriffin1001]

Interesting idea and interesting list. Thanks for tagging me. This one will take some thought

[@GenreBooks23]

Take your time, looking forward to your responses!

[@RaynorReadsStuff]

I absolutely love this. What a great idea for a not-a-tag 😂. Love your choices. I’m going to have a good think about mine 😊

[@GenreBooks23]

Nice, let's see what would be kept in the high security wing of the book shack...

[@backawayfromthedonkey]

Interesting, Challenge accepted .........

[@GenreBooks23]

Excellent. You can go full on "Brewster's Millions" with this one...

[@BookBlather]

Wow, great “tag’ video… and an awesome list! You picked some great ones!

[@GenreBooks23]

Cheers Dave, any special bits on your list?

[@anotherbibliophilereads]

What a great idea! I’ll have to give it some thought.

[@GenreBooks23]

I’ll look forward to it. Whilst we can’t buy any new books, you may as well dream about the truly unobtainable ones!

[@gingerbibliophile]

Awesome idea! Apparently my shelf goals are too little! I just want full series all in same size matching hardbacks instead of 4 different sizes of paperbacks cause publishers are evil. Then again, my bank account says find a sugar daddy when I tell it that 😂 Ouch!! Burnin us poor Americans! Sadly, you aren’t wrong 😭😭 Great video Gavin! Im gonna have to give this one some thought and come up with loftier goals😊

[@GenreBooks23]

I have so many mismatched series it’s not funny!

[@mediumjohnsilver]

I’m happy to have two of those books in the same editions, although in much later printings. I have the Ballantine box set of _The Lord of the Rings_ (28th printing, June 1970); and the Grove Press paperback of Jorge Luis Borges’s _Ficciones_ (18th printing, 1978).

[@GenreBooks23]

Nice! Although the video is all about the first editions, I’d certainly be content with later printings in the real world!

[@Maeve_Ever_Books]

I LOVE this idea!!

[@GenreBooks23]

Thanks, have a little daydream and let us know what’s going to be on that shelf :)

[@royreadsanything]

Great idea for a fantasy thinkathon! I love your choices and would happily just have them. I must confess I have one of them and arguably half of another one.

[@GenreBooks23]

Hm. Now you have me wondering what they are :)

[@royreadsanything]

@GenreBooks23 Not a First Folio

[@genteelblackhole]

What a lovely daydream! I'd definitely want a First Folio too. I hope this fantasy budget also encompasses a really nice bookcase to display these books on.

[@GenreBooks23]

If it doesn’t look good on IKEA…

[@book-ramble]

Thanks for the oblique tag, Gavin! Excellent idea and one I will do immediately! I love your choices and I note the 'rules' though I may struggle to keep them. Best, Mark.

[@GenreBooks23]

I suppose the rules are there to be broken..

[@book-ramble]

@@GenreBooks23 Lol. I salute to General MacArthur in that regards - he broke a lot of them.

[@booksimnotreading]

I wish I had my grandmother’s paperbacks of The Lord of the Rings. Those books were the first time I read them. But since I wasn’t present when her house was cleaned out, I would hope I would have snatched them. I don’t know if I can pull this off, but I’ll create some variation of it. Thanks so much for inviting me to participate! 💛

[@GenreBooks23]

Well, LOTR goes on your list then. There’s the whole heritage/ sentimental side of this that I didn’t even scratch!

[@davebrzeski]

I saw a mint looking copy of The Outsider, and Others on sale at a convention a few years ago. They only wanted £1000 for it. I'm not sure Icould put a list of ten together, but one of them would certainly be the first edition of the 1918 Frankenstein, which, if I remember correctly, came out in 3 volumes. I would rather like first editions of all of William Hope Hodgson's books.

[@GenreBooks23]

Nice. I’m imagining the reaction if I came home with that Lovecraft and I said it was “only” £1000 :) Good shout on the William Hope Hodgson!

[@KatJack-vl8xj]

I'm here to warn you that there may be a bidding war in your future:). I have had three books on my imaginary list for a long time First, Tamerlane. I fantasize about finding a copy at a garage sale for $1. Then, the Chaucer. I am something of a medievIalist and my Middle English isn't that rusty. And of course the First Folio. I think you know how I feel about Shakespeare:) The others will have to wait, though I have some definite ideas about the entries. I couldn't describe them all in the Comments. They'll have to wait until I get my channel up and running...

[@GenreBooks23]

We need this channel! Take your Tamerlane money and get a microphone!

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

This was awesome. I’m definitely doing this.

[@GenreBooks23]

Cool! Look forward to seeing the dream list..

[@dagmoon]

That's a fun bit of daydreaming. I was thinking we might have to take away your British passport until your final choice, which redeemed you. Me, I couldn't think of anything rare I would like. It would be too much responsibility. But, for the books I keep on my permanent bookshelf, I do care in real life about the precise book covers, usually I want the same cover of the edition I read.

[@GenreBooks23]

I’d swap my passport for most of the books here :) some days I’d swap it for an Ace Double…

[@NickBR57]

I would have to have series count as a single book or I couldn't do it! And Im choosing volumes I already have rather than splasing out on esoteric editions - I have bought ones I like. The 2024 LotR and The Silmarillion. The Gormenghast trilogy, Folio Society, probably the 1992 edition. Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series in Folio Society. Catch-22, Folio Society The Aeneid, Folio Society. Dickens novels, 1994 Folio Society ( or just David Copperfield if I can't have them all). To Kill a Mockingbird, current Folio Society (I have an earlier FS edition so cant justify getting the new one). Genius by James Gleick, the First Edition I have on my shelf from Paragon. Switzerland, Secondo Carpanetto

[@GenreBooks23]

These all sound great! The Gleick is new to me, cheers..

[@NickBR57]

​@GenreBooks23 Genius is the biography of perjaps the greatest physicist in the 20th century - and aptly named

[@clarepotter7584]

Maybe a first edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' preferably with an inscription from her to a family member. Would I be able to read the first folio? Not sure, maybe I'd settle for the Folio Society's complete plays, handily divided into three volumes, it's only £200. I see no issue with that...

[@GenreBooks23]

Good shout! USD 107,000 last year. Bargain!

[@clarepotter7584]

@@GenreBooks23 👛😆

[@juliehughes1258]

Folio Society: Everest $320 Folio Society: The Aztecs $230 Folio Society: The Tomb of Tutankhamun $230 The Giant Golden Mother Goose; 367 Childhood Favorites Selected by Jane Werner, 1948 First "A" Printing: $100 at Abe Books …and there are more out of print FS books that I would love to own. I'm adding collector's editions of The Iliad and the Odyssey. Yes, I could buy those, but in all honesty, I don't think I could READ those.

[@GenreBooks23]

FS is a good idea: I’m reading a selection of gothic horror later this year, FS did one run of them, and never did it again 😢

[@juliehughes1258]

@@GenreBooks23 Yes, I did pick up The Haunting of Hill House but I'm too afraid to read it because the movie was so scary. Come on, Julie. Just do it. And you're right. For Americans, it can't be scarier than watching the news (which I no longer watch).

[@stephenwalker2924]

incunabulum /ˌɪnkjʊˈnabjʊləm/ noun plural noun: incunabula an early printed book, especially one printed before 1501.

[@GenreBooks23]

Ah, thanks! In mitigation, I did say I couldn’t read Latin 😀