Maybe they’re Martian years

New releases

Following up on my recent review of Snoopy: A Beagle of Mars (a title which, by the way, is an Edgar Rice Burroughs reference): several people gave me confirmation that physical copies of the book actually did come out last December. This is a second (or later) printing. However, they changed the data listed in the indica, which would usually for a book be publication date, and replaced it with a printing date, with no record of when it was first printed. They did, however, remove the line from the first printings that said “first printing”.

Perhaps odder still, they changed the copyright year from 2019 to 2020. Reprinting a work does not reset the copyright (and the proper copyright year is listed on the back cover.) Checking the US government’s copyright registration database, I can’t find any registration (yet) for this work, but given that the work was published in 2019, it should carry that year.

But this is just technical matters for those of us who have to research earlier publications (such things come up frequently in my work as a reprint publisher.)

Classic finds
English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart

The next book in my Amazon Japan shipment falls into the adorable category of “Peanuts used to explain American culture”. English Phrases to Comfort Your Heart with Snoopy by Nobu Yamada falls into that category. It also falls into the category of “books which are meant to be destroyed”, as each …

New releases
Look! A mook!

Mooks – that is, items with magazine-like content but sold more like a book – are popular in Japan. Many of them come bundled with extra items, and there have been a fair number with Peanuts items. Most often these are bags – a handbag or a tote of some …

New releases
Bringing up the rear

I’m interrupting my coverage of the shipment of books I got from Japan to cover another foreign book that just arrived. Now, I don’t try to collect every foreign Peanuts book. My collection is out of control as it is. I try to find books in languages that I don’t …