New Year, New 30 Day Book Challenge, Day 22

Day 22...

Gianna:

Today's question was sort of lame (name your favorite book that you own), so we thought we would spruce it up some and ask ourselves which book we would really love for you to buy a first edition of for our birthdays.  You are going to buy us birthday gifts right? We won’t be greedy. [I will be greedy.]

My first choice you can probably pick up for under $10,000 if you take the time and really shop around. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor originally sold for about $5 so the price has gone up, I will admit, but the first printing was around 3,000. I know, Harcourt didn’t have too much faith in the old gal.

So that’s a bit too rich for your blood? I totally understand, and that is why I am willing to settle for a signed first edition of Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. I sort of almost know for a fact that this book can be had for under $9,000.  [So can a car.]

Wow, it’s clear to me now that you’re one cheap son of a bitch.  I am going to make a really sweet offer; I will allow you to purchase Beloved by Toni Morrison for me. You can get a signed first edition for a couple grand. [I'm checking now to see if my first printing of Beloved is signed, and then I'm hiding it from my bloggish friend.]

I know, it seems like a pretty extravagant gift for someone you’ve never met, and someone you most likely aren’t going to care much for, but that’s not why we buy gifts for each other. We buy gifts to make people like us. I will give you my word; if any of the above gifts show up on my doorstep, I will really like you. 

Liz: 

I've got an idea. Gianna and I will trade houses for 24 hours, and at the end of the time we each can take a book from the other's shelves. Then we can watch Gianna cry (and not just because Zorro spent 24 hours mauling her). Yes? Okay then. Done.

In the meantime, I think that you need to give me Virginia Woolf.  Mrs. Dalloway, first printing from her Hogarth Press, signed in her purple ink. Yes? Good. Under $20,000. Remember that I've been a very good Liz this year.

In case you think we're just greedy and obnoxious, I would like a copy of Moby-Dick that isn't signed by Herman Melville. I want the Rockwell Kent illustrated version, signed by the artist.

Illustrate this book for me!

Finally, I would like a book that technically doesn't exist...yet. I love The Hakawati, but I would love an illustrated edition of The Hakawati even more. I have two words for you: illuminated manuscript. Someone needs to make this happen. Money is no problem; I think Gianna's loaded.

By the way, as I was poking around the web looking for a cover image, I discovered a site called The Book Cover Archive. I want to look at the art of books as much as what's written within the covers, and this site is my kind of Pinterest. Heavenly.