Archer's Used & Rare Books: Search Used, Out-of-Print and Rare Books Online

I have been a full-time bookseller since 1986 and closed my shop in 2001 to concentrate on mail order, appraisals, and do some writing. My stock includes a large collection of books on Baseball as well as True Crime, Ohioana, Botany, and Music (Blues, Classical, Folk, Jazz, Rock). I am a member of the Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society (NOBS) and A Book CoOp which operates TomFolio.com. My personal book interests include H.L. Mencken, P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Darwin, Jim Tully, travel, baseball, especially the Negro Leagues, botany, especially history, exploration and economic botany, true crime, and the blues.

Jim Tully

After twenty years and countless delays, my friend Mark Dawidziak, TV critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and I are completing the first-ever biography of the hard-boiled writer Jim Tully. Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler will be published by Kent State University Press in 2011. KSU Press is also reissuing several of Tully's books, most of which have been out of print for decades.

Currently available:

Circus Parade (foreword by Harvey Pekar). Tully's gritty memoir of carny and circus life.
Beggars of Life. His breakthrough autobiography about his life as a road kid.
Shanty Irish (foreword by John Sayles). Tully's autobiographical novel about his childhood.
The Bruiser (foreword by Gerald Early). Tully's classic novel of the ring.

Next year:

Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler by Paul J. Bauer and Mark Dawidziak w/ a Foreword by Ken Burns

Coming in 2012:

Shadows of Men. Tully's darkest book, about his years with various denizens of the underworld.

Blood on the Moon. The autobiographical novel covering the period when Tully left the road and decided to become a writer.

Two of Tully's books, Beggars of Life and Laughter in Hell, were filmed. And Tully appeared in a third movie starring John Gilbert and Wallace Beery. That film, Way for a Sailor, contains the only known footage of Tully. It's seldom shown but I've learned Way for a Sailor has been scheduled to air on TCM on August 24 at 1:45.

Neglected Books

If you're as big a sucker for lost classics and near-classics as I am, you'll love: neglectedbooks.com. This is why the internet gods invented blogs.

Readings

Last book read: Lost Ohio: More Travels into Haunted Landscapes, Ghost Towns, and Forgotten Lives by Randy McNutt

Currently reading: Pick Up Stuff: Family Farm Life by Ernie Ranly

Paul J. Bauer, July 2010

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