Of making many books there is no end

Richard Beck is a huge William Stringfellow fan.

Stringfellow is worthy of fandom, and I’m looking forward to Beck’s promised attempt to blog his way through all 14 of Stringfellow’s books in chronological order.

But here’s where the fannish aspect kicks in:

The twist — and if you are lover of books you’ll get this — is to read all of Stringfellow’s books in their first editions. I wanted to read Stringfellow’s books as they came out of the crate when he first saw them. I can’t explain this in any way other than wanting to make a connection with Stringfellow through space and time.

And so I set about looking for and buying first edition copies of all of Stringfellow’s books. First printing and first edition if I could find it. And in this I was very successful. I now have first edition copies of all of Stringfellow’s books and all but one are first printings.

More, during the search I found two copies that were autographed by Stringfellow. The prize of the bunch is a first edition, first printing, autographed copy of My People is the Enemy, Stringfellow’s reflections on his years living in Harlem working as a lawyer.

(This all might sound really indulgent, expense-wise. But no one — other than nerds like me — cares that much about old Stringfellow books, even if they are first editions. Most of these books I got for $3-$5 each. The autographed ones were only about $20.)

I think Beck is right that book-lovers will understand this completely. (Other people may think he’s a bit nutty.)

And but so, my question here is this: Do you have any similar obsessive loves?

Is there some author, artist or band that you admire and return to so often that you’ve set out to collect their entire output? (No fair answering Harper Lee.)

Consider this your chance to confess guilty pleasures and/or proselytize for favorite authors that the rest of us really ought to be reading.