Saturday, March 16, 2013

Books: Finding Hayek in Portland

Last weekend or so, I stumbled across a beautiful copy of the 1944 Chicago edition of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom at Powell's bookstore in Portland, OR.  This brought up a classic problem for bookhounds, for as they say in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "We've already got one."


I found my copy, the seventh printing of the first edition, in Evanston, IL, twenty years ago.  The one I found recently in Portland, is the eighth printing, and in fine condition.

Price-wise, this copy was a ridiculous steal at $17.  Abebooks has similar copies for $250, and even a signed copy of the Routledge edition.

So I'm keeping it.  The newer edition has the most beautiful textured cover.  Here they are together for comparison, with the copy from Portland on top of my trusty old one.


Another look, with dust jackets, and a third book of Pelerin-style essays edited by Hayek.


I'm fresh out of vinyl jackets -- exhausted from Value Village raids -- ordered some tonight from Demco.  It doesn't take me long to burn through 100 of these sleeves.


My mother gave me some Hayek last Christmas.  This book lacks a dust-jacket, but it is very clean and tight for a fifty year-old book.


At Powell's, I also found a few more kids books from Grosset & Dunlap's Illustrated Junior Library, and a hardcover edition gathering together Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar books with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.  These are books my kids need to read!

2 comments:

Sandor said...

Christian,

With the IMF/EU mafia coming out with the 9.9% depositor confiscation demand(6.75% on accounts under euro 100,000) in Cyprus, the line has been drawn. The message of the endgame of the debt crisis has been broadcast. It is at first massively deflationary, then highly inflationary. Which is just fancy language for losses being realized.

Best of luck to all in navigating the next phase. It's going to get hectic. Watch the USD JPY cross and Italian 10-yr yields. Remember, the Forex and sovereign bond markets are 10x larger than equities. Once these two break trend, equities will as well.

christiangustafson said...

This is serious, but I still don't think we will top until about 4/17, with a pin up to the top of the Jaws of Death.

Then we will cross the megaphone, reaching SPX 582 around September 9, 2014. From 1592 to 582, about an 11% increase in chart violence over the 2007-2009 cycle.

That bottom comes when it's the $USD's turn at the glue factory.