Monday, January 6, 2020

Generally Speaking by Lawrence Block

I waxed enthusiastic some time ago about the columns on worldwide stamps that writer Lawrence Block wrote for Linn's. Mr. Block has aggregated said columns in the recently published Generally speaking: All 33 columns, plus a few philatelic words from Keller.

Who is this Keller you newcomers may ask? To quote the mystery writing author: "And the time came when the combination of advancing age and declining interest led me to sell my stamps. Keller, my fictional hitman, still collects with undiminished enthusiasm, but he's younger than I am, and has quite a bit more in the way of discretionary income."

The ebook and paperback (hardback to follow) are available from a variety of sources, including Amazon. I'm looking forward to receiving my copy.

You can read Mr. Block's witty promo for Generally Speaking as well as several of his other recent works by clicking here.

5 comments:

Tim said...

Hi Bob, I had the opportunity to stop at the Yvert store in France and picked up a copy. The 2010 edition had 1116 pages while the 2020 edition has 1375, an increase of 259 pages. There are more pictures, more panes in French I'[m gong to have to decode, but a big change is the color of the pages, from blue to white. And the improved visual changes in typeface for different categories, etc. It's nice to page through it, comparing with a Scott side by side. All in all, a nice addition to the Classic Era reference collection.

albumfilling said...

Thanks for the details on the Yvert Classics catalogs and to Tim for his additional detailed review. It sounds very interesting!

Does Yvert do annual updates similar to Scott or are there longer breaks between editions?

Bob said...

Tim, thanks for the addiitonal info. I have the 2005 but haven't seen either of the other two. Albumfilling, editions of the Yvert so far are 2005, 2010 and 2020. Glad they are keeping this going.

albumfilling said...

Just got the Hit Man book by Lawrence Block and read it. Not bad and I liked how he turns to stamp collecting as a hobby toward the end of the book and how much it becomes a motivation for him to continue his "work".

ChrisW said...

I read Lawrence Block's "Generally Speaking" book a couple of years ago and throughly enjoyed it. Very entertaining read.