Charles de Lint

OK, I know this may not be of interest to most of you but I wanted to write about this....

Charles de Lint is an author who writes mostly fantasy books. His characters live in our world but their lives are linked to a magical other world in some way. Often set in the city of Newford his stories weave a gentle spell....

I avidly devoured every book of his my bookshop stocked and then he fell silent. His books vanished. I began looking on Amazon and discovered that this wasn't true. he had been very prolific in fact. I also found his website and began to realise I was missing out on a lot.

Charles de Lint is a folk musician and loves art as well. He often writes short stories which he has published as chapbooks with art to go with them. These little books are not surprisingly, more expensive than the books generally stocked in my bookshop and a little more specialised.

The stories in these books slowly make their way into collections or they get grouped with other stories about a character and grouped in one book. Consequently working out what you have and haven't read can take a little time.

Working out what you can afford to buy is rather easier. As many editions are rare and stories in one form may have appeared in a cheaper less collectible form, prices vary a lot. The most expensive one I have found is a story called Paperjack in an unknown binding which is going for £534.09 on Amazon. The interesting thing is that this story appears in one of his collections!

I used to own quite a few of his books but had lent them to a boyfriends sister and when we split I lost contact and was unlikely to travel tog et them back. Some of these books I have replaced but not all.

This morning I have gone through his list of published works.... I have discounted books I own, or own in another form as well as the five I have just ordered and this is what I have found...

21 books that are easily affordable
1 in Flemish
3 over a £100
4 between £50 and £100
7 between £20 and £50
2 that are very rare and completely unavailable at present
1 that I could not find even registered on amazon

This gives a total of 39 books!

There are 30 books I either own or own the stories in another form so don't need to buy.

I am glad I added in that little proviso to my target of owning and reading all his books... the one that gives me a get out clause for the expensive one.

Maybe if I become rich one day, I will get to read all his stories....