Unnumbered card. W.S. Di Piero.

Thomas assigned #156 (no #156 in the series) to this one for the purpose of his checklist. It appears this card was supposed to be that number because it fits the timeline.

As luck would have it, most of my Booksmith cards happen to be roughly from 1-150 with some unnumbered cards in there so my sample of the series starts to get few and far between after the W.S. Di Piero card.

By #168 (a Ray Bradbury card), the Booksmith logo had appeared on each card front at the lower left corner.

Anyway, this card, #253, features multi-award winning sci-fi author, Robert Silverberg. It was also this card that marked the beginning of Thomas' involvement with the series.

Silverberg's card neglects to mention that he also wrote about 200 porn novels.

His first published story was in 1952. I'll bet that no other living author on a Booksmith card has a career that goes back that far.

Uh Bill, Silverberg didn't write porn. He wrote erotic fiction.

Card 254. Irvine Welsh.

This one promotes Welsh's 1998 novel, "Filth," which was made into a 2013 movie.

Card 288. Nick Hornby.

This one promotes Nick Hornby's 1998 novel, "About a Boy," which was made into a 2002 movie. It's a good movie.

Card 293. Peter Coyote.

Besides his acting and writing, Coyote has become an in-demand narrator known from several Ken Burn's documentaries(including the Ben Franklin one from last year) and National Geographic Explorer episodes among others.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle, July 01, 2023 12:09 AM

I have completed my six part, illustrated "history" of the Booksmith author cards. It is titled "Those Were the Days . . . One bookseller’s memoir told through trading cards." It is on MEDIUM and begins at https://medium.com/@thomasglad...-part-1-950b727a2d1e

And in case some have not seen it, my complete checklist of the cards can be found at https://www.thomasgladysz.com/...r-cards-a-checklist/

Wow, great, great article! I especially liked reading about Harlan Ellison, one of my all-time favorite authors. Thanks very much for writing it!

Thanks, Thomas. It's a great finish to the extended article. Over the past couple of months, one of my side projects has been studying the series, researching the authors I was not familiar with and learning more about some of the authors I had heard of/knew about.

The article is helping me group cards by author where the author has more than one card. For example, as of yesterday, I had made a sublisting of William T. Vollman's cards and thought I was done at seven but the article notes that there are three others. I see that there are several more authors that have more than one card than I had determined.

You noted one of the authors (Martin Amis) had recently passed away. I'm sorry to add that a number of them are gone now. However, it was great to read that Maas had such a long life, and in her late 90's, she got to see that a lot of people were still interested (others becoming interested) in her story.

It all make me wish I had gone to the store and at least one of the signing events anytime during those 15 years (suddenly already at least 15 years ago). It all happened only about 50 miles away.

quote:

Originally posted by ThomasG:
I have completed my six part, illustrated "history" of the Booksmith author cards. It is titled "Those Were the Days . . . One bookseller’s memoir told through trading cards." It is on MEDIUM and begins at https://medium.com/@thomasglad...-part-1-950b727a2d1e

And in case some have not seen it, my complete checklist of the cards can be found at https://www.thomasgladysz.com/...r-cards-a-checklist/

It's time for more cards...Card #335 David Byrne.

Of course, he's known worldwide from his time as one of the "Talking Heads," but he's also known as a photographer. This Booksmith card promotes his 1998 art book, "Your Action World."

Card #406. Art Spiegelman.

Longtime card collectors know Art Speigelman as the co-creator of Wacky Packages and Garbage Patch Kids - also legendary to comic book collectors as a comics artist/comics advocate/editor.

Card 417. Bruce Sterling.

This is one of his three cards in the series.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle, September 27, 2023 05:21 PM

Catskilleagle -- can you contact me offline (my email address is in my profile)? I've got a question . . ..

Bill

Hi Bill,

Okay.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
Catskilleagle -- can you contact me offline (my email address is in my profile)? I've got a question . . ..

Bill

Card 438. Susan Miller

Card 438. Neil Gaiman, the multi-award winning novelist/short story writer/comics writer/screenwriter with many "card connections" such as "Sandman," "American Gods" (a promo), "Violent Cases" (promo), and "Death: The Time of Your Life" (promo postcards).

Card 460. Vincent Bugliosi

Card 479. Carol Stein Hoffman.

Card 501. Adam Johnson.