Got $500?

V. – Thomas Pynchon

Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1963. 8vo. 492 pp. First Edition, first printing w. first-issue dj (table of contents on rear panel). Pale purple cloth with silver lettering on the spine and blind-stamped “V”s on the front panel. Top edge stained dark blue, gold endpapers. The price-clipped dj is slightly rubbed, with some chipping (esp. head & heel of spine) and a small tear in the middle of the rear hinge – a 1cm square tear at the top of the spine has been tape-repaired on the inside. The boards are clean except for a slight fading along the top edge, a square area at the head of the spine (resulting from the dj tear) and a slight discoloration at the heel edge, and very minor scuffing along bottom edge of front panel. Internally, the book is clean & sound.

Published in 1963 to critical acclaim, V. won the William Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel, and immediately established Thomas Pynchon as a “Talent to Watch”. V. is a sprawling novel, filled with a colorful cast of characters whose various adventures and interactions range across a century.

My friend Mike is headed down to Toronto for the Toronto Book Fair this weekend. He sent me the evaluations of several books that he'll be offering for sale there, and it just made me itch to get my hands on some books. The language of selling books is simply incredible--I still dream of opening a bookstore some day, though it seems more and more distant all the time.

I read far too little of any consequence during the school year, so I'd really like to catch up on my reading this summer. Pynchon is on the list for this summer--what else should be?