My Most Valuable Books

In which John Green introduces you to the eight most valuable books among the 3,000ish books in his family's home library.

----

[scootinand]

That final book is * pounding fists angrily on a desk * THE. SWEETEST. DAMN. THING. I. HAVE. EVER. HEARD!

[higginsj]

My late father read the Hobbit to me and my siblings when we were younger, and in his final months got a Folio Society edition inscribed: "If you can lose yourselves in these fantasies you will wander where I have wandered and wonder where I have wondered." I've cherished those words and that book ever since he passed 22 years ago.

[Ani]

I don't know how allowed it would be on YouTube, but I would LOVE to see a "John Green reading" of a book like Sula _along with_ the marginalia.

[beepboopbeep]

Not having a signed copy of your sibling's book has such a strong sibling energy
Edit: my uncle (mom's younger brother) is a well know-ish author in our little state and we have a couple of copies of each book he wrote and none of them are signed as well! I thought I would add this because oh gawd it's such a sibling thing to do

[Grace-E-]

John you (and Sarah as co-author of The Spring and the Fall) have just reminded me that I have in my possession a binder full of every e-mail I sent my paternal grandmother (Grandma), as well as her direct responses, between the time I first got an email address, and the last email I sent (sometime in my Junior year of college) before she and my paternal grandfather (Poppy) moved in with my parents. Poppy died in December of 2020. Grandma died almost four weeks ago. I'm going to go dig up that binder when I get home from work. DFTBA and thank you both very, very much.

[inem]

One of my most valuable books is Turtles All The Way Down, which has John's signature, a DFTBA, and a spiral drawn with a different sharpie. It's incredibly special to me because of that signed page, tuataria, the scavenger hunt, the fact that I love the book, and also because it arrived one day when I was having a breakdown after being severely depressed for a while, and that book was one of the very few things that made me stop crying at the time.

[emilyblack]

As she tells it, Don Quixote changed my mom’s life. She wanted to lend me her copy, the one her boss gave to her in the 80s, but she couldn’t find it. My mom never cries over objects - she can throw away her high school prom dress as easily as a stained tshirt - but she teared up when she realized it was gone. We have 19th century botanical guides and histories in our library, written by her ancestors, and that copy of Don Quixote was more valuable than any of them. Sentiment is a hell of a variable when it comes to books, isn’t it.

[karensprague]

I have many books that are near and dear to me, but the only book to which I have an attachment to an individual copy is the 1970 Good Housekeeping cookbook. My mother had that cookbook since before she got married. It's about 3 inches thick, and absolutely stuffed with all the basics you could need as a home cook. I'm told it was hardcover when she got it, but I have no memories of it having a cover, since it is so well used that the whole cover came off. It's just a thick paper tome, the front and back and binding covered in clear packing tape as our way of protecting it. You can tell which recipes have been reused over and over and over, because their pages are littered with decades-old stains. It has the chocolate cake we make for birthdays, the chocolate cream pie that was the first recipe I got really good at as a teen, the cinnamon bread we make every Christmas. Notes in the margins on recipes we've adjusted. I'm sure it's worthless monetarily, but it is extremely valuable to my family.

[gtfoitsana]

My most valuable book is a yellowed first edition copy of Better Homes and Gardens Favorite Houseplants. Not because I am a plant enthusiast or have a thumb that is hoping to keep some foliage alive but this particular copy has handwritten annotations in Vietnamese, where my dad would jot notes on how to propagate plants and translations of English words such as "remedy" and "enclose." My dad is a POW transplant from Vietnam and his solace is gardening. One of my favorite things about my dad is his garden and the bright flowers he has circling our house. He proudly posts about it on Facebook every day and I like to think of this book as the guide to his happiness after a turbulent life.

[LeopardMask]

That last one reminds me of a book my Dad has, and has ordered copies of for the people close to him in his life, which he named Decade Full Of Dreams. When he and his three closest friends at the time went their separate ways for college and such, they kept in contact by writing letters in a specific way, in a sort of letter chain that passed from one person to the next. They wrote about the girls they met, the things they were studying or doing, philosophy, mental health, world events, everything - and all this in the late 60s, when -society- the social order was changing, and three of them were participating in protests while one was stuck in Vietnam, and just so much was happening. Somehow, Dad ended up with all those letters, and he transcribed them into one book, which for a while was called the Book of Friends, before he settled on the name. He's a collector of old and rare books of all kinds, and this video made me realize that probably the most valuable book in our house by far is Decade Full Of Dreams.

[lez]

While doing a research project on my favorite poet, Robert Frost, in my sophomore year of high school, I discovered he wrote a a collection of short stories for kids called "Stories for Lesley." I couldn't believe my favorite poet had a book with my name! Spelled correctly! Unfortunately, I couldn't find the book because it went out of print in the early 80s. My mother, being the amazing woman she is, stored away all this information. Three years later, she and my dad gave me a copy of this book for my high school graduation. It has the loveliest inscription of how excited they were for me to go out into the world and write my own stories. I don't know how much the book is worth in dollars and I don't care. To me, it is priceless.

[JohnDRuddyMannyMan]

My reading copy of Lord of the Rings is a movie edition my dad gave me in 2001. I used it for a dissertation on Book to Film where I highlighted all the lines used or paraphrased in the films and illustrated any visual detail that was directly translated to screen in the margins :F

[chocolateer]

So you’re telling me I have a signed copy of Hank’s books but John doesn’t??

[azx]

It's possible that an unsigned first copy of a book by the Green Brothers might be quite monetarily valuable.

[naomiruthsmith]

My great grandfather (my maternal grandmother's father) wrote a diary/memoir of his time living in London during the Second World War. To my knowledge, there is only one copy of it in existence, it is handwritten, and it is by far the most valuable book in my family's possession, at least to me. And it is very well written and absolutely FASCINATING, not in the least because 1. my grandmother, who passed away when I was in my teens and whom I love dearly, features in it quite a lot, and 2. it is incredibly detailed (e.g. I could tell you quite precisely how the war impacted the schedule of his train to work from Caterham, in the suburbs, to Central London - with actual, specific timings!). The man was clearly a real nerd - who very obviously adored his kids - and I love that so very much.

[cheshirecat]

My torn and tattered pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution is my most valuable book. Not because of its value to me as a citizen or as someone interested in the hypocritical ideologies of that time, though it is valuable in those ways too, but rather because a dear, important, influential mentor gave it to me, and it is steeped in those memories more than it is in history.

[sam-the-moomin]

One of my favorite valuable books in my home library is a signed copy of The Giver that I found in my local used book store for like $3, I didn’t even know that it was signed when I bought it, and I didn’t find out until a couple months later when I was going through my library with my embosser and I found it 😅

[pintpullinggeek]

My "most valuable" book would actually be a letter written to my great grandfather, a teacher, by the teacher he had replaced. In it the writer excoriated my ancestor about how he was failing his students by not teaching a proper syllabus.
The writer was H.G. Wells.

Oh, I also have a "Hanklerfish" AART which was an extra nice surprise when I opened it that Christmas because I didn't think the UK was getting *any* signed editions.

[marym]

I have a copy of Because of Winn Dixie that my grandmother gave me in my Christmas stocking when I was 9 or 10 years old, and it is my most valuable book. It's physically unremarkable - not perfect, but not bashed up or annotated or stained. I don't think I've even written my name in it. Realistically, someone could replace it with an identical copy and I'd never know. But I've been reading *that* copy for years, and the story inside is precious to me in a way that my grandmother ever knew. When she died, I looked to my bookshelf for something comforting to read and Because of Winn Dixie was my first choice. It wasn't until days later that I realized the gift my grandmother had given me - a story for comfort even after she was gone.

[caitief]

When my husband proposed, he had a printed journal of the prior year, the moment he knew he was going to propose. It’s by far the most valuable book I own. A close second is a book of all the private messages we sent back and forth on the forum where we met that he gave me as a wedding gift, along with well wishes and advice from all our friends and family. He’s really amazing.