If money were no object, what book would you buy?

[lludwig]

Those We Leave Behind
by L. D. Mitchell at The Private Library

"If money were no object, what one book would you most like to add to your private library?

This writer [L. D. Mitchell] has posed that question to a great many book collectors over the past four+ decades. The answers received to this writer's question, though, may surprise you. When the choice comes down to a single book, the book chosen is almost never a rare or expensive title. Rather, it's usually a book with exceptionally strong sentimental value.

For a collector in Texas, for example, it was a well-worn copy of The Poky Little Puppy. It was the first book the collector had ever managed to read entirely by himself. He lost the book when he moved to New York to attend college.

For a collector in Georgia, it was a Bible which had been in her family since before the Civil War. It wasn't theology, though, that drove this collector's desire. The first few blank leaves in that Bible contained a manuscript family tree that went back almost ten generations. The book was lost during a flood several decades ago.

For a collector in Maine, it was a tattered paperback reprint of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The collector's father was a workaholic, who relaxed by rebuilding motorcycles. It was the only book the collector could ever recall his father reading for pleasure. After his father died, the collector's mother sold the book (for a nickel) at a yard sale.

If money were no object, what one book would you most like to add to your private library...?"

[wri-8727]

Pretty much all the sentimentality has been knocked outta me over the years, but, a pink 1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville 2 door hardtop would work for me.

[wri-8727]

Oh, but you said book, whoops.

1928 Oxford English Dictionary

Not so much for sentimentality, more of a pride thing, I guess.

[fine.books]

Let's be realistic - the Codex Cenannensis.

[wri-8727]

RU a religious man, fine.books?

What would U do with it?

Sell it, and add a wing?

[lludwig]

wri-8727 - haha re: "pink 1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville 2 door hardtop"

fine.books - haha re: "Let's be realistic" Too bad for us that the Book of Kells will never be for sale or up for auction or you and I might have a bidding war between the two of us.

In the article, the Maine collector said he would want the tattered PB reprint of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that his father owned. Several months ago, I bought a First Edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance from a long-time fellow bookseller who I trusted and had confidence in. I bought it not for myself but for an old college friend who had recommended the book to me a couple of years after it was published. When he came to visit this summer I gave it to him and he said that he had been wanting to read it again. I reminded him of his recommendation those many years ago and then told him of my connection to the bookseller. I told him not to be donating it to a library and he then asked, "How much can I get for it on ebay?"

"The selling of a book is a series of linked events."

[wri-8727]

It all about match-making, marrying that book, to that person.

I sold a Brother Cadfael omnibus to a church librarian in Mississippi, (a Saint Mary Magdalene Catholic Church), he was pleased coz Bro. Cadfael was a favorite of the older parishioners. Well, so, I also sent a tattered old french Mary Magdalene prayer card, to.

I got the thank you very much email and a promise the prayer card would be framed and kept on his desk, (it really doesn't take much, does it?) After Hurricane Katrina I wondered how his church had fared but I had forgotten the details of the sell.
Funny old world innit.

[bill11223]

I'm not a  book collector but  the book I would want at any price is Audobons Birds of America double elephant folio.

[lyceumdreams]

---

@fine.books wrote:

Let's be realistic - the Codex Cenannensis.

---

No need to be greedy, I think you have had your fun(at least for this lifetime)......a page a day keeps the doctor away.

[mikescuriouscurios]

Ahh, one of my favorite questions. (Assuming you mean ones we don't already own.)

Let's see, having seen the Book of Kells in person in Dublin (and almost getting kicked out, but that's another story for another day), I could relate to the other poster. While very beautiful I would put it at probably 3rd or 4th place... Personally, relative to it, I'd definitely prefer the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry hands down.

  Also having seen more than one copy of the Audubon Dbl El. Folio intact (and maybe even having/had a plate or two at one time or another 😉 ) I would definitely put it in the top 6 like the other poster mentioned, along with Durer's Underweysung der Messung, and of course Da Vinci's Codex Leicester (if Bill would give it up),  a Lutzelburger edition of Holbein's Le Triomphe de la Mort,
and of course any future discovered Mayan Codices.

But number one of course, which I've also had the pleasure of seeing a few times, would have to be a complete, illuminated, 42-line Gutenberg Bible on velum. The only such one in the US might even be had if you bribe the right person these days ;-).

Maybe you should limit the list to actual "obtainable" (legally) books, lol.

In that case it might be something more like Donatien Francois’ 120 Days of Sodom orig manuscript which unfortunately was recently pulled from public auction at the last minute.

Then again, I guess EVERYTHING has a price...

[mikescuriouscurios]

Aren't we talking books? I can probably get you the original owner's manual fairly cheap 🙂

[wri-8727]

The OP poised a philosophical question, which she tends to do, so I thought a pink elephant might bring her a *grin*, which it did. ( - :

Of ebay course the course
changes right for The Bank

Stay in deep water
u may run aground

[bestpaperboy]

I have simple tastes or at least simpler than what I have seen. 

I would take a first/first hardcover of Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien

Michael

[picture*books]

The Mile High copy of Action No. 1.

[picture*books]

For those who have not heard about the Edgar Church find which are now provenanced as the Mile High  collection: http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg12.html.

The biggest comic book find ever, 18,000 near-mint golden age comic books, preserved by the dry air of Denver, bought for a dime each in 1977.