Bring Me The Books [BLUE]

I am beyond excited to announce two new books!  

While I've talked about these in bits and pieces, today is my first official public announcement of The Finest Assorted Collection: Essays on Collecting Sherlock Holmes and The Common Place Book: 2021.  I figured it would make sense to announce them both on the same day, so let's start announcing!

The Finest Assorted Collection is an anthology that I co-edited with Peter Eckrich.  It is a look at the collecting habit that we have in Sherlockiana.  Twenty-seven Sherlockians have contributed essays to this anthology about their specific Sherlockian collections.  From the hyper-specific to the all-encompassing, there are plenty of essays in here that will have you feel like a kindred spirit, make your mouth water, and make your spouse realize your collection isn't so bad after all!  

This anthology was such a delight to work on with Peter.  We got some great folks to work with and editing this project was a real highlight of my Sherlockian career.  So who is in this book?  How about I just show you the Table of Contents:

Introduction by Peter Eckrich & Rob Nunn

Colligo Ergo Sum by Barbara Rusch

A Three-Dimensional Collection by Denny Dobry

Stranded in The Strand: An 80 Step Program by Charles Prepolec

Hard and Charm Collecting: A Case from Italy by Gabriele Mazzoni

Collecting Books I Cannot Read by Don Hobbs

The Many Evolutions of a Collector by Howard Ostrom

From the Screen to My Library: Collecting Shelockian Cinema by Steven Doyle

The Signature is Very Suggestive by Joe Eckrich

Collecting for the Brain Attic by Ashley Polasek

The Intangible Things by Monica Schmidt

A Three Pipe Problem by Al Shaw

Mr. Holmes, They Were the Footprints of a Gigantic Hound! by Don Pollock

That’s Old News by Mattias Boström

A Case of Ancient Coins by Greg Ruby

“I trust that you don’t consider your collection closed.” – The Never-ending Quest for Traditional Pastiches by David Marcum

Confessions of a Chronology Collector by Mike McSwiggin

The Game’s Adult by Leslie Klinger

A Bohemian Collection by Lee Vann

Collecting the Art of Holmes by Amanda Downs

Art in the Blood by Jerry Margolin

Happy Mother’s Day, Sherlock! by Sonia Fetherston

For the Common Good: Libraries Collecting Sherlockiana by Tim Johnson

Delighted as a Child by Beth Gallego

Detective Pikachu, I Choose You!: Collecting Sherlockian Toys by Robert Perret

All the Selectivity of a Vacuum Cleaner by Paul Thomas Miller

The Collector’s Collector by Christian Monggaard

Living with Johnny Appleseed: Hijacked Planes, Couch Surfing, and the Search for the Holy Grail by Barbara Shaw

You can see why this project was such a fun one to work on!  Many of these authors have been Interesting Interviews over the past few years, and you can bet the ones that haven't been interviewed yet will be soon!

The Finest Assorted Collection: Essays on Collecting Sherlock Holmes will be available from Wessex Press on January 15.

But if you don't want to wait until next month, The Common-Place Book is available now!  This is a collection of 13 pieces of Sherlockian writings I've done over the years with twelve of the chapters covering canonical tales.  Some have appeared on this blog, others in journals, and some were presented at Sherlockian meetings.  

The idea behind this book is that so many of us have our writings scattered all over the place, it might be nice to have things collected under one cover.  This is a slim volume at a slim price.  My hope is to put one of these out each year.  Lord knows there's plenty of writing out there to collect!  

And for those of you who want a peek inside before pulling the trigger, here is the Table of Contents for this book:

Introduction

My First Night Among the Sherlockians

A Lasting Image of Baker Street

And Now as to the Villains

A Pupil for the Scientific Methods

Each is Suggestive

Then I Will Go Back to Him with Some Faked Papers

A Very Pretty Hash You Have Made of It

Old Friends Overstatements 

The Starting Point of so Many Remarkable Adventures

A Study in Steadfast

There is Moriarty Himself

Somewhat Incoherent in Consequence

A Toast to Holmes and Watson

Two more books to add to our already stuffed bookshelves?  Yup.  Add them to your collection and enjoy!