Press release from Mr. K’s Used Books, CDs, DVDs and More:
Starting the first weekend in May, Mr. K’s Used Books, CDs, DVDs and More will be proudly offering for sale the personal library of James Oliver Rigney, Jr., better known to the literary world as Robert Jordan, author of The Wheel of Time fantasy series which was recently chosen by PBS as part of their Great American Read series as one of America’s 100 most-loved books. These were purchased from Mr. Rigney’s estate and taken directly from the carriage-house office in Charleston, S.C. where he wrote and worked to the four Mr. K’s locations across the South.
Mr. Rigney who passed away in 2007 of cardiac amyloidosis at the age of 58 was not only a beloved author but also an avid book lover. Mr. K’s manager Kelly Langston-Smith says, “When talking to his long-time editorial assistant and library organizer Maria Simons, she told us that one of the things that he was most pleased about in being a successful writer was that he could buy any book he wanted. When asked if he kept every book he ever bought, she told us that, no, if he didn’t like a book, he got rid of it. These were all books that he wanted to keep.”
The collection consists of more than 10,000 books across a wide variety of subjects, many of them non-fiction works which he used as research for his writing. “A lot of these books are really esoteric,” Langston-Smith says. “If he was interested in a subject, he didn’t have one or two books on the subject, he had ten or twenty. He especially seemed fond of Asian culture and art, weaponry of all sorts, Native Americans, naval ships, exotic languages, ancient history (primarily Greek, Roman and Medieval), military battles and the like. I have worked for Mr. K’s for over 15 years and 80% of these books I have never seen before. I doubt I will ever have the privilege of processing a collection this interesting and unusual ever again.”
All four Mr. K’s locations will have a section dedicated to “The Jordan Collection” in which only books that came from Mr. Rigney’s library will be displayed. The initial offering will be available for sale starting May 4th and will be regularly refilled as more of the collection is processed. “It’s over 400 boxes of books,” Langston-Smith laughs, “I’m not even half-way through them yet. I’m sure we will be adding new and interesting things to these displays well into the summer.”
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