Elvis and Kathy, 1987.

Kathy Westmoreland (with William G. Quinn.) ELVIS AND KATHY. Glendale House (USA) 1987. ISBN: 0961862203

Current Selling Prices
$450-$800 /£220-£400

MUSIC /ELVIS / MEMOIR
Uncommon and expensive memoir of life on the road with Elvis. In 1970 after being in the Sandpipers and singing on their deathless hit 'Guantanamero' she was hired to sing backup vocals for Elvis Presley, both in the studio and on stage. He would introduce her as "the little girl with the beautiful high voice." She continued to perform with Presley until his death in 1977, sung a tribute single, “You Were the Music” and sang at Elvis funeral, her chosen song was “My Father Watches Over Me” She is on record as having been a lover of Elvis-- he even bought her a few cars including a Lincoln Continental. A reader at Amazon reports:

"...a unique insight in to the man's life. Whilst Priscilla wrote about 'her' life with Elvis, focusing on how neglected she felt etc etc, Kathy writes about her experience of sharing and witnessing Elvis' life for a time. She was on stage with him all those years, knew what he was like before and after performing...She gives insight in to the man behind the image without tarnishing his character. She was a virgin when she met Elvis but that was to change... This book is a collector's item and very expensive to get a hold of but I am told that Kathy is in the middle of re-releasing this book (updated version) which will be affordable for everyone... must be read by the public for a clear view of Elvis the man, entertainer, prankster and KING!

Interesting to note that it might be reprinted as this will soften the price, but the true Elvis collector will always desire the first edition. A copy at about $500 is descibed thus: 'Hardcover. Small tears in dust jacket. Binding is tight. Moderate cover wear. Some pages show wear. No writing inside pages.' Sounds slightly nasty, especially alarming is the phrase ' some pages show wear' which could be pretty bad as the word 'wear' is not qualified - as in "slight wear' or 'mild wear'. Caveat Emptor.


VALUE? In 2006 some madmen had a poor copy at $2K. In October 2005 it made $207 on ebay, there are copies currently at ABE at $500 to $900. A rarer and possibly more valuable Elvis book is 'Memories Beyond Graceland Gates' by Mary Jenkins (cook and housekeeper to Elvis known at Graceland as Mary Langston, her married name) published in USA by Eastland in 1989.( ISBN 0962375608 110 pages, illustrated -pic left.) Only one copy online at £600, this with a relister who probably does not possess it. One to look out for at the flea market and possibly worth more than Kathy's book, but surely not $12 a page.

In this food orientated book Mary writes that Elvis returned from a concert tour in 1972 and told her about a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich he had eaten while on the road. Mary said it took her three tries to get the sandwich to the King's satisfaction, and then she cooked them for him the rest of his life. One for the food book collection to put next to the Elizabeth David and the Careme.

Some astonishing Elvis trivia. 1. His favourite Monty Python sketch was the the Knights who say Ni! The King would occasionally do his version of the sketch for his friends. Elvis as noted above was a prankster and as evidenced by out takes from his recordings he liked jokes and playing jokes on people. 2. I read somewhere that in his late teens his hair was blonde. 3. In the mid 1970s I was in a Russian cafe on Sunset Boulevard in L.A. Elvis had eaten there and there was a polaroid of him on the wall with a waitress. Even in this simple photo he looked astonishingly handsome. 4. In the mid 1990s I went to a 'gathering' in Northern California, where there was a lot of drumming, the party was thrown by a striking Amazonian ex hippy soixante huiter who was said to have numbered Elvis among her old lovers. He was, apparently, 'very hot.' 4. Sometimes when being driven through small towns he would have his chauffeur stop at a Cadillac or Lincoln showroom. There he would buy one and present it as a gift for someone ogling the gleaming autos through the window. Maybe apocryphal or a one off. 5. His poshest fan is one of the Mitford Sisters - Debo, Duchess of Devonshire. She has a collection of Elvis memorabilia including an Elvis telephone. Favourite song 'His Latest Flame.'

Elvis appears to have requested Kathy Westmoreland to sing at his funeral, which suggests that he had some idea that he wouldn't make old bones. “My Father Watches Over Me” is a religious song, by the way, and Elvis sung it on one of his more churchy albums. Pic of funeral procession below. Long live the King!

STOP PRESS First posted April this year. A few more copies of this have shown up but none less than $200 and a couple at $1000. The Beyond Graceland Gates cook book has become more plentiful, none below $400 but about 4 for sale and 2 beneath $500. These are books to find, not to blow hard won C notes on, however.

Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code, 2003

One of those books that is so popular that you get emails from people in prison wanting it. Fairly readily available so not frenetically sought after but a remarkable phenomenom, and one worthy of consideration. This is a rejig of an entry from December 2006 showing a 25% fall in price. Supply and demand-- there are just too many out there. However signed copies have increased in value, probably by the same amount, possibly because there are a finite number around and the author isn't doing signing sessions.

Dan Brown. THE DA VINCI CODE. Doubleday, NY 2003. ISBN 0385504209

Current Price $250-$550 / £130-£280


THRILLER/ CONSPIRACY /THE OCCULT.
Astounding best seller - so successful it inspired workshops, seminars and, for a time, revived the European tourist industry. There is a point on the book - you want a jacket price of $24.95 and on page 243 scotoma should be misspelled skitoma. Also you need the 'First Edition' statement and the complete number line of 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 listed on the copyright page. One suspects the print run was pretty high, this was DB's fourth book and he was already doing well. (Doubleday say it was 260,000--dealers holding copies cast indignant doubt on this figure.) Such bestsellers never become hard to find-- take a bestseller like 'All Quiet on the Western Front' 80 years later there are still plenty about in jacket and they only did 100,000 of that one.

VALUE? 12/06. Fine copies can be had for less than $500, sometimes even signed. There are copies on the net proclaiming the first edition price will rise when the Tom Hanks movie comes out - i.e. they have been there a while. Some dealers asking $4000 for the same copies people are asking $500 for. Slightly weird; it may be a decade or 2 before the book is in any way uncommon. Oddly enough the really, really dear copies are tipped as investments. And they are 'pristine'.

For a guy who is probably worth more than Yoko Ono, Dan Brown seems quite approachable-- signed copies abound (however see above.) A decent signed copy made $289 last week at ebay, the seller stated that Brown would sign no more 'for security reasons.' On the other hand back in June 2006 a copy on ebay made $5825.28 - it was signed by the film's cast, crew and Dan Brown. Provenance is pretty important. A copy signed only by Hanks made £2250 but was being sold for charity. Bless.

VALUE? STOP PRESS. May 2007. Fine copies in the jacket (also fine) can now easily be had at ABE for $260, the cheapest signed are at around $800. On good days at ebay somewhat less than these prices. There are still sea green optimists holding out for $4000 with increasingly desperate blandishments. The book is, of course, 'smoke free' (a now common requirement) and 'absolutely flawless' and 'protected by clear archival Brodart' and 'carefully packed in a box.' Copies are even offered with a 'Lifetime Guarantee' whatever that means- perhaps you can get the book serviced every four years. One copy is proclaimed as the years best seller indicating it has been there 4 years. One recent entry, possibly having a laugh, puffs the book as 'increasingly rare.'

For $4000 you could buy all Brown's novels, all immaculate and smoke free and all signed and expect at least $1500 change. Digital Fortress, his first novel, goes for circa $400 fine/ fine, Angels and Demons, the book that introduces the charismatic Harvard prof Robert Langdon $400. His other novel 'Deception Point' (2001) can be had for $50. Double for signed copies (on the page--signed bookplates are best avoided entirely) except with a first of 'Deception', where you might have to spend several hundred.

His first two books, humorous paperbacks, can be had for $20 each as true firsts although a few chancers want 10 times that. They are '187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman' (1995) co-written with his wife under the pseudonym Danielle Brown and 'The Bald Book' 1998, co-written with his wife under the name Blythe Brown.

As to Dan Brown the writer, his peers have been slightly sniffy, an article at Slate reckons his finest piece of writing was his 69-page witness statement filed with the British courts in 2006 when he was being sued for copyright infringement by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Certainly he is no Nabokov, even Ian Mcewan and possibly Louis de Bernieres can turn out better prose - but when it comes to writing for dollars he defers only to J K Rowling and Stephen King. [ W/Q *** ]

In His Own Write. John Lennon, 1964.

"Puffing and globbering they drugged theyselves rampling or dancing with wild abdomen, stubbing in wild postumes amongst themselves . . ."


John Lennon. IN HIS OWN WRITE. Jonathan Cape, London 1964.

Current Selling Prices
$150-$300 /£75 - £150

HUMOUR / POP / BEATLES
Lennon's first book. A very easy book to determine as a first, it says 'First Published in 1964' and that's it. No reprints must be mentioned. English whimsy, showing some influence of Professor Stanley Unwin (the above 'globbering' quote is a good example), Lewis Carroll, Spike Milligan and James Joyce of the Finnegan period.... The major acknowledged influence on Lennon's prose style was Stanley Unwin (1911 - 2002). His 'Pidey Pipeload of Hameling' gives a good example of why the thinking man's Beatle dug the Professor:-

Once in a long far awow, in the Germanic land, there was a great city with Grubbelsberg or something like that, with an Obermeister-Bergelmasty who was in charge. Now there they had a surfeit or rat-suffery, where all they used to creep and out and gnaw sniff and gribble into the early mord (and the late evage) there, biting the bits of the table, also the tea-clothers; and when people were asleep in their beds, so these rats would gnaw into the sheebs and also the whiskers of those who was dangly hoaver.

VALUE? Just sold a bright, clean first UK copy on ebay for $298 (that's our actual photo) which is pretty much it. We got alot of emails over the 10 days asking whether it was truly a first or a 'first edition, first impression' even though we illustrated the edition statement and insisted it was the true first. It is not ignorance but distrust - too many punters have been fooled into buying reprints that have been described as first editions either by crooks or dimwits, often both.

To get anymore than £150 it has to be some sort of advance or review copy or an uncorrected proof or a signed presentation from the author. One signed twice by Lennon and also by all 3 other Fabs is on sale at £15000 and could well sell. The Spaniard in the Works from 1965 is worth about the same money if not slightly more.

Meanwhile it is said that prison guards (screws) short of a few bob get John's assassin Mark Chapman to sign copies of his favourite book 'Catcher in the Rye' and put them on ebay. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Conspiracy theories abound including an attempted connection with Billy J Kramer and the NY block where John was shot -- Billy's group was called 'The Dakotas' (geddit?) --also Mia Farrow who was at Rishikesh with the mantra muttering moptops was in 'Rosemary's Baby' which was filmed at the Dakota building. Say no more. Rare photo of Billy J and his band and Gerry Marsden with the Fab Four beneath.