Laurel KrahnOMG! OMG! OMG! I just held this book in my hands!
I showed it to my husband: “that is not a little book, it is big.”
Indeed.
(There is a story behind this . . . ) 🧵 (1/x)
You might want to take a look at this article if you haven’t yet: “The 25th Anniversary Edition of John Crowley’s Little, Big Was Almost Two Decades in the Making” by Molly Templeton on Tor.com:
Little, Big by John Crowley is one of my favorite books.
I read it, after hearing it recommended at Fourth Street Fantasy Convention IIRC, in the very cozy guest bedroom of my Grandma & Grandpa Olson’s house in Mitchell, South Dakota. Was, at that point, my favorite place in the world (yes, really).
The experience of reading that particular book in that particular place is a vivid sense memory for me (& I don’t have many of those).
Years later, there was talk of a fancy 25th anniversary edition of the book. I was intrigued! They offered pre-orders. The book was not going to be cheap (as it would be large & illustrated).
They offered a significant discount if you ordered multiple copies. I did not need multiple copies! But a bunch of us got to talking on Livejournal (IIRC) and decided to go in on an order.
Over the years, I honestly forgot where we had left this. Had I committed to this? Had I paid?
Life happened and I really didn’t keep much track of what happened with the book. Occasionally I’d see an update. Finally sounded like it might happen.
I thought “hmm, I should probably figure out if I actually ordered this directly or with friends.”
Time passes. And then I see a tweet from @Womzilla:
(And I reply enthusiastically and at about that same time get a message from him on Discord: “Hey, I have your copy of the Deluxe *Little, Big*, only 17 years behind schedule!” )
Fortunately he keeps track of things and knew I still owed him money and fortunately I’d just received a bit of money from a kind friend and we sorted out payment and shipping and all of that.
And I worried a bit about the blizzard causing issues, but the book arrived in fine shape today. <3
Will have to give the book a proper look after lunch. (So excited!)
I fully intended to use the money someone sent me via the Tip Jar on https://linktr.ee/LaurelKrahn for crucial things like food but I think most folks who like me or my nonsense enough to throw a little $ my way understand it is good to have money for other important things like books. ❤️
(Would eat ramen for a week to afford this book, obviously.)
Used the Wayback Machine on the LittleBig25 site and gosh, yes, I guess a 40% discount if you preorder 5 or more copies would explain why some of us decided to go in together on an order.