McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

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A Handshake Deal etched in Stone.

September 7, 2015 /

There are some new Riders in the District. They’ll be sticking around for a time, so you’ll have an opportunity to see them on horseback, striking up a handshake deal over the fence rails.

It’s a big bronze, fashioned by sculptor Bradford J. Williams, who comes to Western art naturally, having been raised in Colorado amidst cattle drives and country fairs – living the cowboy life. The large-scale monument sits on the north end of the new building being constructed by Arkansas Valley Bank, or AVB as their signs identify them these days.

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I’m fond of the idea of the handshake deal, and the bronze makes me think of my dealings with the local bank in McAlester when I was a young man. The new car bug had bitten and I found a little one-owner that I just had to have. My enthusiasm for it may have just caught the banker off-guard or maybe it was just the nature of small-town dealings. He didn’t ask for any collateral or down payment. “I know your Daddy,” he said, and told me to go ahead and get the car. He’d have the paperwork drawn up as quick as he could.

Just a signature was all he required. My promise that I would repay the loan.

Time was, a man’s word was his bond – something that could be trusted. That’s the spirit of the handshaking monument. It’s called “Binding Contract,” and once upon a time a handshake was better than a signature on a piece of paper. A contract might be misfiled or lost, but you can’t dispute shaking on a deal.

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Our own Rose District sculptor David Nunneley has worked with Mr. Williams in the past, and aided in the recent installation of the monument. Both artists work in bronze and have statues in public spaces all across the country.

Williams – a self-taught artist – describes his western sculptures as “symbols of our need to believe that another world exists beyond that of our experience – a world that is richer and truer, a world where hard work, trust, decency and strength without excuse aren’t just rumors, but fact.”

It’s a fact that the bank’s new building is progressing nicely, and the street repair on the south edge of the property has been completed, allowing the road to be reopened for traffic. For now, you’ll have to peer through the chain-link construction fence to have a gander at the cowboys, but they’ll be out of the gate soon enough.

We’ll be open tomorrow and firing up the lunchtime chuck wagon, so…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

The Patient is out of surgery.

September 3, 2015 /

In our last episode, the little Bible book was on life support, hoping for another chance on the bookshelf over the dustbin alternative.

Good news.

Front and back covers have been reattached and a replacement piece of cover art has given the book a more presentable look. I’m hoping that the book’s owner won’t be too startled by the changes.

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There were a few specifications that made the project slightly out of the ordinary book rebind. She wanted to keep the original feel of her father’s childhood book but wanted it sturdy enough to take off the shelf and read.

It’s solid enough to easily last another half-century. There’s a new covering at the spine that holds the boards for the front and back covers. That’s topped with a nice piece of thin leather with raised straps. The cloth covering is one that I had purchased to redo a Civil War era book – the lady at the fabric shop had a piece of material that was based on fashions of the mid-nineteenth century.

One of my rules-of-thumb about old books is that they should be in a condition that allows them to be displayed or shown off to visitors. If your old book is shedding pieces of paper like cat-hair, you’re less inclined to leave it out on the coffee table. This one had that problem, but – no more.

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Those Old World bookbinders have my admiration. I’m a graduate of the bookbinding school of hard knocks. Nothing too fancy.

But this little book will probably still be serving its purpose long after I’ve checked out of the library.

The Edition before the First Edition.

August 31, 2015 /

A lot of crazy stuff going on in the 1950s. Television was a new thing, really. There were radios in every home, but most of the living rooms with TVs were located in New York City – that’s where the few TV stations that existed were broadcasting.

Books?

Who knew what was going to happen with those old throw-backs?

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There was that whole Cold War thing, worrying about nuclear bombs and Communists. The world was playing out like Science Fiction, except most libraries didn’t even stock the genre. They weren’t considered literary enough.

All those scenarios were playing on the mind of Ray Bradbury, who combined several of the elements to create a short work of fiction called The Fireman. In the novella, Bradbury expanded a book-burning premise and a totalitarian government element from two of his previously published stories.

He had rented a typewriter in the UCLA library’s basement for twenty cents an hour and spent a couple of weeks pounding the keys and cranking out his tale. Galaxy Science Fiction was a new magazine at the time, and Bradbury’s story was the featured fiction in the February 1951 issue.

An editor at Ballantine Books read it and immediately contacted Bradbury, urging him to add enough to the narrative to double its size. Fahrenheit 451 was the resulting novel, said to have been completed in nine days in that same basement at UCLA.

It took a little time to get the manuscript onto the printed page, but it has been in print ever since. It has held its own against other cautionary tales concerning government involvement in conformity and censorship. Ironically, the work itself was censored for years before a friend pointed out to Bradbury that the publisher had taken a red-pen to eliminate words considered too adult for teen readers.

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Fahrenheit 451 is required reading for some high school classes, and while it has been around for more than sixty years now, it is certainly a less-dated classic than some of the 19th Century titles on school reading lists.

It made quite the impression on me as a young reader.

Needless to say, First Edition copies of the book are fairly expensive to come by – that’s why I was tickled when a copy of The Fireman – the story that became Fahrenheit 451 – landed on the front counter. It’s in the 1951 issue of Galaxy magazine which arrived with Scotch-tape on the cover along with some creases and age-tanned pages.

That’s okay.

If it wasn’t for the little magazine and the story it contained back then, I would not be selling copies of Fahrenheit 451 this week to back-to-school English students.

Oh, and by the way – if the title has never been explained – 451 degrees is the average temperature at which a book will burst into flames. (A scary thought for booksellers to consider!)

We’ve got plenty of other hot book ‘round here, so…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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