Munster & Company Books

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Corvallis, OR
Munster & Company Books

An online bookstore located in Corvallis, Oregon, featuring books of all types for all interests. Visits to our office are by appointment only.

01/27/2026

The job ahead is clear.

Every conceivable effort must be made to rekindle the fire of democracy while a few embers yet glow in the gray ashes of the American dream. Once it goes out it may take generations before a new fire can be started. The fire, the energy, and the life of democracy is popular pressure. Democracy itself is a government constantly responding to continuous pressures of its people. The only hope for democracy is that more people and more groups will become articulate and exert pressure upon their government. It is short-sighted to attack the few major pressure groups in this country as "dangerous lobbyists" or "un-American," for although these pressure blocks are seeing primarily to further their own interest, their organizing and bringing pressures to bear upon the government is participation and democratic activity which is infinitely more American, more democratic theman the dry, dead rot of inactivity, of refusing to become involved in pressure groups. When we talk of democratic citizenship we talk and think in terms of an informed, active, participating, interested people-- an interested and participating people is popular pressure!

A people can participate only if they have both the opportunity to formulate their program, which is their reason for participation, and a medium through which they can express and achieve their program. This can be done only through the building of real People's Organizations in which people band together, get to know one another, exchange points of view, and ultimately reach a common agreement which is the People's Program. This is the reason for participation: their reason-- their lives and the lives of their children. The universal premise of any people's program is, "We the people will work out our own destiny." This is the cardinal basis of democracy, and various specific issues are not too important in comparison with the main issue. Can there be a more fundamental, democratic program than a democratically minded and participating people? Can man envisage a more sublime program on earth than the people having faith in their fellow men and themselves? A program of co-operation instead of competition?

11/05/2025

We're continuing to geek out over copies of The Physical Review, which is a physics journal that was started in 1893. Today we catalogued a particularly exciting issue from 1911, with the first paper being from a certain Robert Andrews Millikan. Millikan received his degrees from Oberlin College and Columbia University before going to teach at the University of Chicago. It was there that Millikan started work on measuring the actual charge of a single electron, which until then had never actually been done. Together with his graduate student, Harvey Fletcher, the two observed tiny electrically charged pilndroplets between two metal surfaces and were able to determine the magnitude of the negative charge of a single electron for the first time. Millikan published a 12 page abridged version of his paper on the experiment in 1910, but it was in this issue of The Physical Review that the full paper was published six months later in April of 1911.

Check it out at the link in the comments.

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11/04/2025

Today we're getting to work on some issues of The Physical Review published by the American Institute of Physics. This particular copy features a contribution by the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, who is credited with creating the first artificial nuclear reactor. In this paper he lays out how the loss of energy of a fast-charged particle changes depending on the medium it is traveling through. Toward the end of this issue is a letter to the editor from Alfred O. Nier, who reports that he has isolated uranium-235 using a mass spectrograph that he designed. This sample was then used by John R. Dunning to demonstrate that uranium-235 was the isotope responsible for nuclear fission, which was a crucial step in the development of the atomic bomb.

This and other issues of the journal that we will be cataloguing were originally owned by Robert Brode, who led the Manhattan Project team at Los Alamos that created the fuses used in the atomic bombs.

10/19/2025

The fair just opened here at the Seattle Center, and we'll be here until 4 pm!

10/18/2025

It always feels so good to be back at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair, but today is a special day. Eight years ago today we signed the sales agreement and Munster & Company was born! We'll be here in booth 202 today until 6 pm today (Saturday), and from 11 to 4 pm tomorrow (Sunday).

08/02/2025

We had our first official gathering in the bookshop to celebrate the completion of our Main Street America in partnership with American Express Backing Small Businesses Enhancement Grant. We still have some projects to wrap up in the next couple of weeks, but it was lovely to finally be able to see our vision come to life and to share it with some really wonderful people. We have been really touched by all the support and encouragement we have received these past few years, and it honestly gave us goosebumps to see people we love enjoy this space we have worked so hard to create. Huge shout out to The Thyme Garden for catering. The food was delicious and beautifully presented! It was such a wonderful way to celebrate that bright light at the end of the tunnel! We can't wait to welcome everyone in this Fall! 📚

04/14/2025

April has been a busy month for us, and the first week was off to a roaring start with our first book fair of the year! Granted, this isn't the kind of book fair that you would normally expect to find us at. With the help of many wonderful parent volunteers and Profé, the school librarian, we were able to bring back the Scholastic Book Fair to Garfield Elementary, where our two children are enrolled. They haven't had a book fair since 2018, so Jessie organized everything in order to make it an annual event again. With the aid of our Main Street America Enhancement Grant, we were able to give each child a 'Ticket to Adventure' that they could use to get a free book of their own choosing. It really was fantastic to see how excited all of the students were, so we'll definitely be bringing the fair back next year. We're also hopeful that we'll be able to continue buying each child a book so that no one leaves the fair empty-handed.

03/31/2025

For the most part, writing in a book is pretty undesirable and can prevent it from ever selling. If the handwriting belongs to someone of note, or maybe just someone with a worthwhile opinion, it can make things a lot more exciting. Here is an anti-feminist book printed in 1925, written by the Italian doctor and criminologist Gina Lombroso. This particular copy was owned by a woman named Leslie L. Armstrong in Calistoga, California, who made her thoughts about Lombroso's ideas known throughout this book's pages. Page 47 is a particular favorite, as Leslie clearly wasn't having any of this.

03/08/2025

Happy International Women's Day! Today we're working on a rather exceptional recent arrival that has brought our attention to the importance of women in science. This rare copy of 'The Butterflies of the West Coast' by William Greenwood Wright really is an amazing book in its own right, as this is a first edition copy with 32 colored photographic plates. According to OCLC, only four copies are in institutional holdings, with most libraries having a copy of the second edition. After the second edition was published, the original stereotype plates and other materials the publisher had to produce further printings were destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco.

On top of the scarcity of the first edition, this copy was originally owned by Katharine Brandegee (1844-1920), who was a botanist living in California. She originally trained to be a doctor after her first husband died, and was the third woman to have enrolled at UC Berkeley. While undergoing her studies, she became interested in botany through studying medical plants, and despite earning her medical degree in 1878, decided not to pursue a career in medicine. After joining the California Academy of Sciences, she eventually became the academy's first female curator and also the first paid botany curator in 1883. She married fellow plant collector T.S. Brandegee in 1889, and founded the botanical journal 'Zoe' with H.W. Harkness the following year. After a short stint in San Diego, Katharine and ger husband moved to San Francisco and donated over 76,000 botanic specimens to UC Berkeley.

At some point this book was gifted by Katharine's husband to another botanist named Carlotta C. Hall (1880-1949), who taught at UC Berkeley. Her specialty was ferns, and in addition to publishing about ferns of the Pacific Coast, she co-wrote the book 'A Yosemite Nature' (1912) with her husband, Harvey Monroe Hall.

Although not yet for sale, we couldn't resist sharing this glimpse of the important roles women have been playing in science!

01/28/2025

Some of you may remember that last June we announced that we were one of 500 recipients of a $10,000 grant from Main Street America and American Express. When we completed the projects that the grant funded, we were eligible to submit an application for a $30,000 enhancement grant, of which only 25 would be awarded.

We did it.

Here's the official announcement:

We are proud to announce that Munster & Company received a $30,000 Enhancement Grant from the Backing Small Businesses program presented by American Express , in partnership with Main Street America . We were among the 500 Backing Small Businesses grantees awarded $10,000 last year, and now have been selected among 25 of the original grantees for an additional enhancement grant that will help us address cultural, environmental, or access needs in our community. We are so excited to be among the recipients of this program!

We will announce more details at a later time outlining what we'll be doing with the funding, but what we will say now is that our storefront will definitely be opening later this year. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, and we're so excited to finally be able to invite the community into our space. It'll be worth the wait, we promise!

12/13/2024

Just finishing up working on a sammelband of ten 18th century publications, including, among other things, Anthony Collins' 'A Discourse of Free-Thinking', some Quaker publications by Richard Finch, and two short works concerning William Boyd, Earl of Kilmarnock and Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who were both condemned to death for their roles in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Nestled in the middle of the book, is this piece that was published in regards to Oliver Cromwell, and explores whether it is legal to...umm... assist in shuffling a tyrant off the old mortal coil, so to speak. Originally published in 1657, this edition of 1743 was 're-printed for the heirs of Junius Brutus'.

How festive.

10/26/2024

It's day one of the 2024 Seattle Antiquarian Boook Fair, and aside from the fact that I lost my voice last night, we're ready for the crowds. The fair will be open from 10 am to 6 pm today (Saturday), and 11 am to 4 pm tomorrow (Sunday). We'll see you in booth 202!

Address

212 SW 3rd Street
Corvallis, OR
97333

Telephone

+15417403461

Website

http://www.munsterbooks.com/

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