Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Karloff--The Man, the Monster, the Movies by Denis Gifford

Yes, we have no money. Yes, we're selling off large portions of our much vaunted pop culture library. BUT...that doesn't mean we aren't also still adding to it when we can. Here, for example, is a book I saw once and only once before---in the basement of Kidd's Book Store in downtown Cincinnati in 1972. They had one copy. I looked at it. I coveted it. But...for some reason I passed on buying it. Never saw it again outside of ads in the back of FM.

Cut to 2011. A couple weeks back I was checking info on a different book on Amazon and lo and behold, I ran across a copy of Denis Gifford's long lost Karloff book...for three cents! THREE! As in 1...2...3: 3! So...adding the required postage of $3.99 still set me back a tad more than the buck fifty it would have cost me back in '72 but meet the newest...and perhaps longest overdue...addition to Booksteve's Library!

3 comments:

  1. Lucky, lucky! What a treasure. I remember seeing in the back of Famous Monsters too. Never got it or anything else advertised. But I could dream. I hope it's a good read.

    Alberto Ramirez Jr.

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  2. You inspired me to go dig this out of The Sanctum and blow the dust off the cover. As I recall, this was advertised in "The Monster Times" as well. Gifford's book is a nice, well-done effort for its time. I bought my copy new back in the day and somehow held on to it in pretty good shape for 40+ years. The date of the book is 1973 and it is a part of "The Curtis Film Series" copyrighted by "Film Fan Monthly" which was a digest-sized print 'zine edited by film critic Leonard Maltin for many years. Maltin was also credited as the General Editor for the books series, whose titles included work by Chris Steinbrunner and James Ursini. My two-cents on your three-cent purchase!

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  3. Had it, loved it, kept it on a shelf in my basement, storm came along & flooded said basement and over went the bookshelf...

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