A little ramble on writing...

One of my oldest friends is a natural born storyteller, she is funny, sometimes biting but always entertaining. It seems to me that for her writing is as effortless as breathing, and as someone who has to write 3 drafts to get one coherent, semi-grammatical paragraph, I admit to being pea green with envy.

I think that good writing is a lot like good singing; with some training and and a lot of practice you can learn to carry a tune, but very few people are born with a tuned ear and a true voice. So I practice, practice, practice....

A little bit of perspective

It's more than a little humbling to google your own name and not come up until the 11th page. Especially since I've been online since 1996...

Another Image of Childhood- 1960's

A Happy Nursery Book PLAY, story and pictures by Virginia Parsons. NY: Doubleday and Co. 1963.


I dare you to look at this cover and not smile!

Auction Price Realized- Harold's Trip to the Sky Crockett Johnson

I usually don't report on Ebay auctions but the auction of a possible first of one of the Purple Crayon books by Crockett Johnson fetched a most reportable $565.

Dust jacket Art- Images from Childhood 1960's

Some examples of 3 color illustrated dj art from the 1960's taken from books in my inventory.

THE GALLOPING GOAT AND OTHER STORIES by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Illustrated by Robert L. Jefferson. NY: Abingdon, 1965.








MYSTERY ON A MINUS TIDE by Marg Nelson. Jacket design by Catherine Smolich. NY: Farrar, Straus & Co, 1964.









A PLACE BY THE FIRE by William MacKellar. Illustrated by Ursula Koering. NY: David McKay, 1966.

Dust jacket Art 1960's Juvenile Sports Books

Well, one of the advantages of spending most of your time uploading pictures of inventory is you get to see some neat books. Here are a few images of some juvenile sports books from the sixties that we currently have in stock.



Stepladder Steve Plays Basketball by C. Paul Jackson. Illustrated by Frank Kramer. NY Hastings House 1969.














Last Summer To Ride by Patricia Leitch. NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1965. (First published in the U.K. in 1963 as: Janet, Young Rider.)












The Comeback Guy by C.H. Frick. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.

I'd really rather be reading....

We've finally started the slow and tedious process of uploading images of our online listings. The process is slow because it is hard even with help to find the time take the blasted pictures and tedious because we are not only uploading them to our own store at windyhillbooks but are also sending them to a couple of the large book database sites.

I know we are late to the game getting pictures of our books online, but with over 12,000 books it was daunting even thinking about getting started. We finally started uploading on Feb 1st and have approximately 250 images to date, it will be interesting to see how long it is going to take to get this finished.