You Might Not Be Able to Afford Gardner Dozois' 1,200 Title SF Library, But You Can Still Make Use of It

21.06.2015 Nate Hoffelder 2 Comments

BoingBoing reports that Gardner Dozois has put his SF library up for sale. He’s assembled the collection over the course of decades as a magazine editor and anthologist, and is hoping to sell it intact.

All 1,200 plus titles – and that’s just the spreadsheet listing the highlights; the actual collection is probably far larger than that. (You can reach Dozois via his Craiglist ad.)

I would bet that buying this collection is beyond the means of most people reading this post (shipping cost alone could run over $5,000) but that doesn’t mean you can’t still come out ahead.

I had honestly planned to write a tongue-in-cheek post about this sale, but as I got to reading the spreadsheet I kept discovering anthologies which I had never heard of but desperately want to read.

And rather than keep this treasure trove of reading recommendations to myself, I thought I would share it.

Dozois has been an anthology editor for going on 40 years now, and based on that spreadsheet I think he may have saved a copy of every single anthology book he put his hands on during those four decades. Some helpful soul listed all of those books on the spreadsheet, making it a great way to discover old SF.

For example, Dozois' library contains a dozen anthologies by Mike Resnick. I knew of three of the anthologies, and I liked them enough that I’m going to see if I can find the rest. The Jupiter anthology (Frederick Pohl is credited as the editor) is also tempting.

Of course, these books are probably only going to be available in paper as used books, but I think they could be worth the nuisance.

You can find the spreadsheet here. When you run out of books to buy, you can also find a list of Dozois' own work on his Wikipedia page.

Have you found any titles which interest you?

BoingBoing

images by romanboed, Wikipedia