That's A Lot of Dick

Reader Bruce Berls writes:

"It’s not completely obvious why I have 22’ of PKD books, plus a shelf of commentary and biographies, and another shelf with PKD Society newsletters and a handful of 50s magazines, and assorted DVDs and tapes and an opera. But I thought you might want to add a couple of photos to the gallery of PKD collections.

Back in the early 80s, when I had read almost all of PKD’s SF novels, I stood in a store with a copy of Levack’s bibliography in my hand, staring into space, knowing that if I bought it I would be unable to resist buying more editions of books I had already read. I bought it. And sure enough, I started keeping my eyes open in used bookstores and placing orders for new editions when I could afford them. I never sought out super-expensive first editions, just added things when I found them. I’ve never stopped.

So not a scholar, not obsessed, just a fan with packrat tendencies. It’s a pleasure to read your site, to see the work done by the trust, to see the labor of love on the PKD Bookshelf page, and to see PKD’s work become ever more widely recognized. It’s helping make my bookshelf seem a bit less eccentric to family and friends. Well, that’s not true – they’re still fairly appalled, but not quite as much as if PKD’s memory had grown dim."What can I say Bruce, you've left all of us feeling completely inadequate. 22'!

Beautiful collection, and looking at, I can't help but notice how well these words from Lethem's recent story "The King of Sentences" describe PKD's publishing history:

"We owned his titles in immaculate firsts and tattered reading copies and odd variant editions. It thrilled us to see the pedestrian jacket copy and salacious cover art on his early mass-market paperbacks: to think that he’d once been considered fodder for dime-store carrousels! The newest editions of the titles he’d allowed to be reprinted (four early novels had been suppressed from republication) were splendidly austere, their jackets, from the small presses that published him now, bearing text only, no graven images. The progress of his editions on our shelf was like a cartoon of evolution, a slug crawling from the surf to become a mammal, a monkey, and then at last a hairless noble fellow gazing into the future."

I've Got Nothing To Prove Here

When I discovered a few months ago that Grouchogandhi had started a 'Show Us Your Dick' contest, in which he asked to see readers' Dick collections, I decided that I was too mature to indulge in the juvenile competition. I've got nothing to prove (although I did drive a Porsche for a couple of years).

Grouchogandhi got things started with 30 inches of PKD (click to enlarge):

(I love how he files his hand-bound edition of Saucers of the Illuminati behind his PKD collection and as long as it isn't interfering with measuring the length the inclusion is acceptable)

Adam Gorightly soon upped the ante with a 46 inches of PKD material:

No tape measure, no bragging rights. But this appears to be legit (notice though, he's interfiled his Sutin bio and other secondary sources right in there with his PKD).

While surfing the other day I noticed a new claim: Discordian Dr Jon claimed his collection of Dick was 70 INCHES long! (That's almost 6 feet of Dick!). Although fearful, I had to see what it looked like. Picture below (click to enlarge - if you dare)


I have to admit it's pretty impressive - at first.

But then I noticed that he's filing K.W. Jeter's novels in his Dick section! And he's got CDs in there - in cases, and notebooks, who knows what else!

Note to Kevin Jeter: you now have an even greater grievance to present to your maker than your old, dead, stiff cat. Here you are, a talented writer, with perhaps more than just an idle claim as one of the forefathers of cyberpunk, and yet your novels are fluffing some guy's Dick collection. Surely this can't be a moral universe.

We've seen your kind before Dr Jon:



Well my moral outrage (and a quick guestimation which led me to believe I might not embarrass myself by posting my own collection) has led me to this. Here it is, my 46 1/2":

OK, I realize you can't actually read the tape measure from this angle (I just noticed that in fact) but surely you cannot doubt this Dick-head's honesty and integrity. Besides, I've got nothing to prove here.

Now of course I could easily get a few more inches out of this if I really worked on it. I could have included my giant Norton Anthology of Science Fiction just because it contains "Frozen Journey"; I could have put some DVDs in there (The Gospel According to Philip K Dick, Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, etc). I could bring home all of the PKD books from my office, make a tour of various friends' houses, collecting loaned editions; I could've included my complete set of newsletters. Why not include all of my Italo Calvino books because I bought them because they compare PKD to him on the back covers of the Vintage editions? But I keep telling you, I don't have anything to prove here! After all it's not how much Dick you have; it's what you do with it that matters.

Here's a tour of my Dick:

I was also careful to sort my collection out. I have about 36 inches of pure PKD (pictured below, PKD collection ends between Voices From the Street and my Russian Edition of Lies Inc):

The remaining 10" consists of secondary sources: Sutin's bio, Carrere's book, Bishop's Philip K Dick is Dead, Alas, Welcome to Reality, Williams' Book etc. In the interest of full disclosure, there are a couple of books that belong to the library at San Francisco State University:

The two copies of my master's thesis put me over the line, eclipsing Adam Gorightly's 46 inches - finally I've answered the age old question: what do you do with your masters thesis?!

I'm willing to bet they are even bigger Dick collections out there. I think I remember Jonathan Lethem telling me he had a whole bookshelf (perhaps he writes that in "You Don't Know Dick"). But now that I've shown you mine, I want to see your collection of Dick books. I'm not going to turn this into a contest because that would be immature and juvenile and I want it merely to be voyeuristic. Send in pics of your Dick collections and I will post them (oh the Google hits I'm going to suffer for writing that sentence!). But if you want bragging rights (which I am willing to bestow) you need to be realistic about how much PKD you actually have. Total Dick-Head readers will accept nothing less than full disclosure.

Update: The Philip K Dick Bookshelf is aptly named. Webmaster Henri assembled a shot of his shelves, 16 FEET 10 INCHES of PKD!!