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Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 12:08 PM
One of the advantages of living in or near a larger city is that authors come through regularly on book-signing tours. There are several independent bookstores in the Phoenix area that host such appearances on a regular basis, and meeting authors, getting to know some of the ones who come through frequently, and of course reading and collecting the books has become a major source of enjoyment for me these days.

Our mystery-centric bookstore in Scottsdale, The Poisoned Pen, is one of the best places to hang out and meet authors. The owner is a former archivist for the Library of Congress, a publisher, and a personal friend of many of the authors, so they rarely skip Scottsdale on their tours.

Among the writers whom I’ve met there are the late Robert B. Parker (‘Spenser’, ‘Jesse Stone’), Andrew Vachss (the ‘Burke’ series), Lee Child (‘Jack Reacher’), Kathy Reichs (‘Bones’), Craig Johnson (‘Longmire’), the late James Crumley, Earl Emerson, Ed Kovacs, Clive Cussler, Laurie King, Joe R. Lansdale and Jeffrey Deaver. I tend to gravitate more toward the “hardboiled” detective stories, but one author of the lighter variety - the “cozies”, as they’re called – named Betty Webb has written a series of books called the Gunn Zoo Mysteries (beginning with ‘The Anteater of Death’) and I feel obligated to buy and read them (and get them signed, of course) because Betty named the heroine of her books after my wife.

A general interest bookstore, with a couple of locations here in the Valley of the Sun, is called Changing Hands, and they also frequently host author signings. Last week I met Ila Borders, she of Independent Baseball pitching fame, there and got her to sign her just-released autobiography and a baseball. A few years ago, I met Matt McCarthy, the Yale pitcher who wrote the controversial minor league expose ‘Odd Man Out’ at the same store.

Others I’ve met at Changing Hands are former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, Anne Rice, Linda Ronstadt and Ozzie Osborne. (That last autographed book was a gift for my sister, who was a big fan of his reality show. The Ozzie signing brought out a very…interesting crowd; that was the longest I’ve ever stood in line to get anyone’s autograph.)

One of the first author signings I attended after moving here in 1993 was at the now-defunct Brentano’s, where I met Leslie Nielson. Some years later I was privileged to see Charlton Heston at that same store, which is a story in itself. I think it was at a Barnes & Noble store that I met and spoke with U.F.O abductee Travis Walton; he signed his book for me of course, and my VHS copy of Fire in the Sky. Travis was the second U.F.O. abductee I’ve met, having seen Whitley Strieber at a signing some years ago in California. (I also have a rare signed copy of a book by ‘50s U.F.O. abductee and famous oddball George Adamski, which I discovered in a second-hand bookshop many years after his death.)

That is far from being the only signed book that has come into my possession second-hand, as it were. One of my favorite poets is the late William Stafford, and one of my favorite poems is his ‘Traveling Through the Dark’. For my birthday one year, my sister sent me a signed copy of his poetry collection of the same name…and apologized because it wasn’t a first edition. :rollseyes: In a second-hand bookshop in San Jose in the ‘80s, I found a copy of The New Testament: An American Translation by Edgar J. Goodspeed, which was popular in the ‘20s, signed by Professor Goodspeed. (It’s not every day you come across an autographed Bible.) It was also about that time that I attended an author’s symposium at the San Jose Public Library and met fellow Indiana-expat Jessamyn West and Harlan Ellison. (Louis L’Amour was there, too, but the signing line for him was out the door and around the block.)

DGUtley
03-17-2017, 12:17 PM
Thanks for sharing. I have no signed books. I have plenty of unsigned books, generally history books. I do have John Wayne's autograph and will have it framed and hang it in my office one day over the fire place once I get the appropriate picture I like to frame it with.

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Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 02:49 PM
Wayne's heirs put a huge collection of the Duke's personal things up for auction a year or two ago. The catalog was mind-blowing - memorabilia from all of his films and one-of-a-kind personal items. Hard to pick, but if I had to do it, I'd probably go with one of his cowboy hats, or maybe the beret he wore in The Green Berets.

Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 02:52 PM
By the way, was that photo taken before you'd actually moved into your house, or are you just one of those minimalist décor kind of guys?

DGUtley
03-17-2017, 02:52 PM
Wayne's heirs put a huge collection of the Duke's personal things up for auction a year or two ago. The catalog was mind-blowing - memorabilia from all of his films and one-of-a-kind personal items. Hard to pick, but if I had to do it, I'd probably go with one of his cowboy hats, or maybe the beret he wore in The Green Berets.

I'd like to find a picture of a courtroom scene or something like that. Maybe something from Liberty Valance or something.

Peter1469
03-17-2017, 05:27 PM
I got a book by Michio Kaku autographed. At the Air and Space Museum here in DC.

Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 05:50 PM
I got a book by Michio Kaku autographed. At the Air and Space Museum here in DC.

Oh, yeah...the guy from the TurboTax commercial! :grin:

I've wanted to visit that museum for a long time. I did see some wonderful things at the Air and Space Museum in San Diego, but many of the historic aircraft they have there are mockups and replicas, and I'm sure the D.C. museum has probably got most of the originals. A traveling Smithsonian exhibition came through Phoenix 10-15 years ago and they had a Mercury capsule - I seem to recall it was Glenn's Friendship 7. (Also one of Lincoln's stovepipe hats, George Washington's cavalry sword and the little table they used at Appomattox Courthouse to sign the terms of surrender on.) When I was stationed in Memphis in the early '80s, my oldest son, then about eight, and I drove up to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. They had a Saturn V rocket, all 365 feet of it, laid out on the ground, and we got to see Miss Baker, the space-going squirrel monkey, sitting calmly in her enclosure eating a banana and watching the tourists.

DGUtley
03-17-2017, 06:59 PM
By the way, was that photo taken before you'd actually moved into your house, or are you just one of those minimalist décor kind of guys?
We are getting ready to move our Akron offices into the former BF Goodrich executive offices. These were the original Pres, VP, General Counsel offices. My office will be the former VP office as my partner and I flipped for the Pres office and I lost. We are currently in an old rubber mansion, but we've outgrown the available space.

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Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 10:29 PM
We are getting ready to move our Akron offices into the former BF Goodrich executive offices. These were the original Pres, VP, General Counsel offices. My office will be the former VP office as my partner and I flipped for the Pres office and I lost.

Ah, I misunderstood - I thought you meant it was your home office.


We are currently in an old rubber mansion, but we've outgrown the available space.

Well, the nice thing about a rubber mansion is that it will stretch to accommodate your needs.

http://www.regansmithclarke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Fozzie-bear-e1290119553981.jpg

WAKA WAKA WAKA!

resister
03-17-2017, 10:34 PM
:yo2:

resister
03-17-2017, 10:38 PM
I met Mark Renz, an author and fossil guide, I was not a client. Nicest guy you could hope to meet, gave me 2 of his books. Fossiling in fl and Giants in the storm.

A great guy.

Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 10:39 PM
I'd like to find a picture of a courtroom scene or something like that. Maybe something from Liberty Valance or something.

I recall a courtroom scene in True Grit, if you could get a still image from that.

Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 10:52 PM
I met Mark Renz, an author and fossil guide, I was not a client. Nicest guy you could hope to meet, gave me 2 of his books. Fossiling in fl and Giants in the storm.

A great guy.

I've got a cousin who is a paleontologist specializing in cetaceans and their evolution. I'm guessing he's done quite a lot of fossil-hunting in his time. Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to dig for fossils on the ocean floors, considering how much of the world's surface they cover?

resister
03-17-2017, 10:59 PM
I've got a cousin who is a paleontologist specializing in cetaceans and their evolution. I'm guessing he's done quite a lot of fossil-hunting in his time. Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to dig for fossils on the ocean floors, considering how much of the world's surface they cover?
Yes it would!

I have a few whale vertebrae. I finally got out today, first time in a few days. Fl. is cold right now!

I know (up north is actually cold)

Standing Wolf
03-17-2017, 11:06 PM
Yes it would!

I have a few whale vertebrae. I finally got out today, first time in a few days. Fl. is cold right now!

I know (up north is actually cold)

Do you ever come across non-fossil things in your digs? Bullets, coins, that sort of thing? I know in Great Britain it seems like every few years somebody else finds a cache of 2,000-year-old Roman coins in a barley field. So much of America was so sparsely populated until relatively recently, whereas in Europe there are places that have been pretty much continuously inhabited for millennia.

resister
03-17-2017, 11:13 PM
Do you ever come across non-fossil things in your digs? Bullets, coins, that sort of thing? I know in Great Britain it seems like every few years somebody else finds a cache of 2,000-year-old Roman coins in a barley field. So much of America was so sparsely populated until relatively recently, whereas in Europe there are places that have been pretty much continuously inhabited for millennia.
A great observation, have found bullets and lots of spent copper jackets, found a copper jacket and 2 old 12 G brass today.

I was given a big brass (boat motor shroud?) a few days ago.

One never knows what is to be found.

Archeology and paleontology, often overlap.

jimmyz
03-17-2017, 11:26 PM
We are getting ready to move our Akron offices into the former BF Goodrich executive offices. These were the original Pres, VP, General Counsel offices. My office will be the former VP office as my partner and I flipped for the Pres office and I lost. We are currently in an old rubber mansion, but we've outgrown the available space.


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Man-O-man if those smoke stained panels could tell their tale. Dont redecorate please. The osmosis into you is priceless.

resister
03-17-2017, 11:48 PM
Do you ever come across non-fossil things in your digs? Bullets, coins, that sort of thing? I know in Great Britain it seems like every few years somebody else finds a cache of 2,000-year-old Roman coins in a barley field. So much of America was so sparsely populated until relatively recently, whereas in Europe there are places that have been pretty much continuously inhabited for millennia.Have found antique bottles and various artifacts/antiques. Large pieces of coal from the 19,00's phosphate mining era, random melted glass ( likely burned as trash in coal fired boilers)

Some spent bullets, each new day may contain a surprise.

jigglepete
03-23-2017, 04:07 PM
I only have one signed book, Planet Drum by Mickey Hart (drummer for the Grateful Dead). He did a book signing in Kenmore Square the day after his Planet Drum project played in Boston...great guy, really nice.

Although I also have Tim Dorsey's signature, but it's on a Serge/Coleman themed baseball cap, and I got it from his website, I've never met him, but I want to...