Livia, Joanna, and I went to a big book sale at the local public library this morning. You never know what you're going to find at sales like that. The prices were good: $1 for hardbacks and 50 cents for paperbacks (including trade paperbacks). I picked up eight or ten novels, most of them fairly contemporary thrillers by authors I haven't read before. I don't mind betting a buck a book in a case like that, especially when the proceeds benefit the library. I don't check out all that much these days, but I like knowing it's there.
Those of you who remember my post about baseball novels a month or so ago will understand why I was excited when I found a couple of Chip Hilton novels by Clair Bee. Unfortunately, when I looked closer I realized they were "new, updated" versions of the original novels. Maybe I'm being unfair, but right back they went onto the shelf. Nearly all the "updated" novels I've read in my life have been nowhere near as good as the originals. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Frank and Joe Hardy and your chums.) Anyway, I did find a 1945 baseball novel by Jackson Scholz. It's a later reprint but appears to have the original text. That one I grabbed.
We also got a bunch of non-fiction books on various subjects to go in our research library (a high-falutin' name for dozens of books stacked here, there, and yonder), and Joanna picked up quite a few books for her third-grade class. Right now the bags, nearly a dozen of them, are still stacked on the sofa, waiting to be gone through, so I don't really know what we have in there. I do know, though, that it was a very pleasant way to spend part of a Saturday morning when I really should have been working.
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11 comments:
Best way to spend the morning I can think of. I feel the same way you do about those updated books. The Jackson Scholz, though, should be fun.
I read the updated Frank and Joe growing up and didn't know the difference until a few years ago when I snagged a couple superior originals.
The updated Hardy Boys books published in the Sixties really aren't bad, but the originals have so much more charm and personality. Or at least that's the way I remember them.
The updated Spider novels are ridiculous, and I still wish John D. MacDonald hadn't rewritten those pulps stories in THE GOOD OLD STUFF and its sequel.
The big shift in Hardy Boys (case files, etc) seems to be from solving mysteries to solving murder mysteries. I hate the idea that it's not a mystery unless somebody dies.
I prefer the pre-rewritten HB. A wonderful look into a culture long past. (Though exactly when did the HB go to school?)
Which Jackson Shultz did you pick up. I think I have a full run of his novels, but there are two titles I believe are phantom titles, but I'm not positive.
The updated Chip Hiltons weren't a disaster, but they were certainly not as good as the originals. I have a full run of both along with the original Bronk Burnett series.
Joe Archibald moved from the aviation pulps into a long series of juvenile Sports novels that almost measure up to Jackson Schulz.
I have a run of William Campbell Gault's juvenile sports stories as well, but more for nostalgia purposes since I knew him in his latter years.
As for Juvenile baseball series, Duane Decker still appears to hold the crown.
I myself loved those Hardy boys, not to mention Tom Swift, from the fifties. I was getting into reading then and devoured those things as fast as I could get my hands on them.
I have those rewritten Spiders as well, though i've only read the first one. Godawful stuff.
The Jackson Scholz book is BATTER UP, but I was looking at it just now and realized I didn't check it out closely enough. In tiny print on the copyright page are the words "Reissued with changes that update the text for contemporary readers". Oh, well. It was only 50 cents.
I'm with you on those "updated" novels. Trash! The originals are infinitely better. I'm addicted to Library Sales. I've found wonderful books there for a pittance. And, the money goes to support the Library which is a Good Thing.
My copy of Batter Up has disappeared. I know I owned a older copy, but it's not with the rest of my baseball fiction. The only Scholz there is Dugout Tycoon. According to Andy McCue's Baseball by the Books, William Morrow published 14 baseball books by Scholz between 1942 and 1970. He mentions that Morrow said it had no record of publishing one titled Little League Town in 1959 although it was included in Anton Grobani's Guide to Baseball Literature.
how do you know if a hardy boys is an updated version?
i was reading them in the early 1980s. i think i read almost all the 40 or so stories then available from our school library.
This page will tell you just about everything you'd ever need to know about the Hardy Boys, including the actual authors of the original series and the history of the revised editions:
http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hb3.htm#rh
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