One of my college friends visited me while I was home for Christmas and asked if I wanted to visit Von’s Books. I had heard him describe this place multiple times — a haven of used and new books, a miracle of bookstores, a goldmine — and not once were we free at the same time to visit. But a few days ago, we did just that, and drove an hour outside of my hometown visit this glorious bookshop.
Do not be deceived by the poor website, because the store is heaven! I found several Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights editions I’d been searching for for eons. My friend shook his head and laughed when I snatched them off the shelves and held them close to my heart.
Wuthering Heights (blue and black profiles) — Harper Design / HarperCollins
Wuthering Heights (field of leaves) — Vintage
Jane Eyre (fire) — Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Jane Eyre (profile) — Vintage
Jane Eyre (purple leather quotes) — Canterbury Classics
What books can you not keep your hands from grabbing (and prevent your wallet from emptying) when you see it?
5 thoughts on “Bookshop Goldmine”
Acid Free Pulp
I love the Vintage copies. I would love their entire catalogue.
beckyday6
Brilliant! This place sounds like heaven. 🙂
Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favourite books and I have been considering trying to collect multiple copies for some time. At the moment I own two. I have yet to read Jane Eyre though, I really must get on that!
Laura
Jane Eyre was the very first book that spoke to me on such an emotional level at a time when I really need something like that in my life.
What did you like most about Wuthering Heights? What spoke to you?
beckyday6
Awwh that’s really great, I love it when that happens with books, how they can find you right at the moment you need them most. 🙂
I actually wrote a pretty massive post on it here: http://beckysblogs.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/day-11-your-favorite-classic-book/
I have so many feeling about that book it is hard to even put into words, but mostly I loved how utterly screwed up the characters were and that they weren’t afraid to show it. In some ways I think it is far closer to reality than many other books, even if it is a bit melodramatic. I connected to Emily’s prose on some profound level that I have never found with any other book (except maybe The Hunger Games, they were special). 🙂
Laura
Oh gosh, I have to agree! –> “I loved how utterly screwed up the characters were and that they weren’t afraid to show it. In some ways I think it is far closer to reality than many other books, even if it is a bit melodramatic.”
I think that might be why Emily’s book was so shocking and potentially frightening for people at the time — that it was so raw, so emotional, so almost-animalistic and passionate and conflicted between love and hate and all the blurred lines. It resonates with readers today, because we still feel these things. It speaks about humanity on such a base level.
I love the Brontes.