Loot of the Week 15 Feb 2016

This week's loot consists of five books, of which only one is a prize winner.

The first is Don DeLillo's first novel, Americana, which is also signed. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1971, and was described by DeLillo, some years later, as "shaggy and overdone", which probably explains why he slashed out numerous pages in a subsequent revision for the paperback edition. But the book sowed the seed for DeLillo's status as a cult writer, and it took seven more books and 14 years later when he found acclaims - commercial and critical - in "White Noise". According to Ahearn, only 4,500 first edition copies were printed. I'm a partial collector of DeLillo, and this book likely completes my collection of his work.

The second is Robert Lewis Taylor's The Travels of Jaime McPheeters, published by Doubleday in 1958 and a Pulitzer winner. The third is a limited signed edition of Robert Frost's "West-running Brook", published by Henry Holt in 1928, complete with both the original, albeit now worn, slipcase and glassine. It is also the second edition and the first edition is the trade issue. When collecting Frost, I tend to avoid flat signed copies because of the abundant forgeries and only collect official signed edition issued by the publisher.

The final book is Samantha Hunt's "Mr Splitfoot", the first Powell Indiespensable pick for 2016, along with a free ARC of "Fever at Dawn".