Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Our Kind of Guy

The New Yorker  (subscription required, damn New Yorker) has a short account of the auction this week of Otto Penzler's collection of mystery novels. Apparently, Mr. Penzler was one of the first collectors to focus on the mystery genre, and his collection has grown to sixty-thousand (!) volumes.


Turning from hobbyist to purveyor, he apparently didn't neglect his personal collection:  
"In 1988, construction began on a spacious Tudor house with a tower library in Connecticut. 'Actually, it's a little house with a big library attached to it,' he said. 'The library took me ten years to finish. I kept running out of money. To this day, when I walk into that room I say, 'Holy shit. I live here.'"


The Ape will now spend the next 3-6 weeks fantasizing about a 'tower library.'