Saturday, December 06, 2008

Forrest Ackerman, R.I.P.

If the name "Forrest Ackerman" means absolutely nothing to you, then you're probably not a big fan of the classic horror or science fiction genres of the mid-twentieth century. You can read a bit more about the man behind Famous Monsters of Filmland, who also launched the career of Ray Bradbury, right here.

I saw Ackerman interviewed a few times over the years, but there's one particular quote of his that's always remained with me. He was renowned for owning a very large book collection (the above article indicates 50,000 books) and so, in the interview, he said that people often ask him if he's actually read them all! "And so I tell them that yes, indeed, I've read every last page of every book that I own!" And then he winked at us, and added, "You see, whenever I get a new addition to the collection, the first thing I do is read the last page in it!" (Paraphrasing from memory here.)

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