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Collecting Martial Arts Books by Rob Jacob |
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Besides practicing karate, I also collect martial arts books. My collection is somewhere aroun 1500 books, and still growing. Not just karate books, but all styles. Everything from Ninjutsu, to drunken kung fu. Some of the largest sections besides karate are Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, and kung fu. I generally lump all of the Chinese arts under kung fu, so that includes Wing Chun, Tai Chi, and pretty much anything related to Bruce Lee or Jeet Kune Do.
I had a few karate books, but started buying them in ernest, when I was reserching for one of my black belt papers. Many of the books I have read cover to cover, but others I have more for referencel. So if I am curious about a kata, or a technique, and what other styles teach it, and how it varies from the way I was taught, I just start digging through my library.
My favorite books are the autobiographies. You can visit my Martial Arts Autobiographies page at http://www.eisshinryu.com/martialbio.htm. Everytime I see a martial arts autobiography that I don't have, I buy it. Actually there is one book I have seen, that I don't have, and that is Karate: Goju Ryu By The Cat by Gogen Yamaguchi. I have simply not been able to cough up the $250 for the one book. Hopefully, I will find a less expensive copy sometime.
Some of my books I have bought new, usually at Amazon. But the majority have been bought used. I love haunting used book stores. I cannot pass a used bookstore with going inside. Many summer weekends when the weather is nice, I will travel to other counties in western New York, with various used bookstores marked in my GPS unit, and a stack of maps, and spend the day hunting for books.
Most used bookstores either won't have any martial arts books, or will have very few. And most times, the ones they have are pretty common ones that I already have. One shop owner told me that he only got martial arts books two way, either death, or divorce.
I will only buy a book if I am getting a good deal, or at least a fair deal if I am very interested in the specific subject of the book. I will buy the most inane martial arts book if I don't have it, and it is cheap enough. I generally have a good idea of what the books I find are worth, so if I find a book priced at $10, and I know I can buy that same book other places for the same, or less, I will pass on it. Occasionally, I will find a steal in a used bookstore such as a book priced at $25, that sells everywhere else for over $100. If you find bargain on a book like this, keep a poker face on as you pay for it, and wait until you get to your car to sing and dance. If you start bragging to the shop owner what a great deal you are getting, he may raise the price, and you might never find a bargain there again.
Probably the majority of my books have come from ebay. Again, I won't buy a book, unless I am getting a good deal. I am not give away any of my secrets, but I spend alot of time watching auctions for books that I might be interested in. Before I bid on a book, I check elsewhere, to make sure that I don't bid too high. I have seen people bid $50 for a used item, that they could have bought new at Amazon for $30, if they had bothered to look! Don't get auction fever!
Other sources for used martial arts books are Half.com, Amazom.com (which also sell used books), and Bookfinder.com. Bookfinder is sort of a meta-search engine for books. It searches other used book search engines, and returns the combined results. I use bookfinder.com quite often to find out what a book is worth, or to even buy a book. I recommend them very highly.
Often, I will find a reference to a book that I didn't even know existed, but that I want. Sometimes, I will do a Google search (my favorite of the various search engines) on the title of the book, to see if I can find a copy for sale, or to at least read reviews of the book. Some books I have bought, have only been available directly from the publisher (such as some published by Damashi), or from a dojo website affiliated with the author (such as The Human Face Of Karate by Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura).
Occasionally I find a book that is so rare, and hard to find, that it isn't available anywhere else. Then I have weigh what the book is worth to me. I have a handfull of books that fall into this category, such as Karate Psychology & Karate Sensei, both by Peter Urban. These are esentially the same book, but Karate Psychology is the self published version. Or another book, is Battleaxe, A Warrior's Tale by John McSweeney. There are some others, but these are among the rarest in my collection.
Many Isshinryu related books, are now out of print, and are hard to find. In fact many martial arts books seem to have short retail lives. So if you see a book that you are interested in, I recommend buying it, as it might be out of print next year, and then become harder to find.
Good luck, and have fun with the hunt!
Rob Jacob is the author of: Martial Arts Biographies - An Annotated Bibliography.
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