John Booth's "Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek" Revised & Improved

April 20, 2009 - PRLog -- CANTON, Ohio  – When the original Star Wars hit theaters in May 1977, John Booth was six years old.

Thirty years later, the award-winning Ohio journalist and writer celebrated the anniversary of the  film's release with a series of essays and a National Public Radio affiliate commentary about growing up in the age of George Lucas' original space trilogy. Those essays grew into a year-long project culminating in the July 2008 publication of the book Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek - The First 30 Years.

Thanks to the feedback and support of domestic and international readers, Collect All 21! is now available in a brand-new revised edition featuring a cover by artist and author Kirk Demarais (Life of the Party: A Visual History of the S.S. Adams Company) and an added foreword from “Darths and Droids” and “Irregular Webcomic” creator and astrophysics Ph.D. David Morgan-Mar.

The 1980s are revisited, to be sure, from those early years of action figures and playground battles, through the Golden Age of The Empire Strikes Back and the goosebump thrill of seeing Return of the Jedi as a 12-year-old on opening night. But Collect All 21! also moves beyond that decade and straight nostalgia to look at how the Star Wars saga and the author's fandom evolved through the lean years when the movies were far from the mainstream consciousness, through his own difficult personal times in the early 1990s, and on into the Special Editions and the Prequel Era, when he experienced the films as a parent and shared them with his daughter.

Edited by Adam Besenyodi, former PopMatters editor and author of Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan, the first edition of Collect All 21! sold copies in ten countries and garnered positive feedback from buyers via both Amazon and Lulu.com:

“For any fan of the Force out there considering buying this book, you will find laughter, tears, and a whole lot of fun!” (from a Lulu review by Josh Akerman)

“This book is like a time machine. This is the story of how it was to be a kid in the late seventies/early eighties and how it felt to be sucked into the world that George Lucas created.” (from Belgium-based reader Guy Van Gompel's five-star Amazon review)

And on the web site Retro Finds, Rob Wainfur's review called Collect All 21! “an absolute must read if you are a collector, a retro fan or if you remember the first time you unpacked that Boba Fett.”

“This book is full of gems that will bring back memories,” he wrote. “I cannot recommend this book enough.”

Collect All 21! is available at http://www.lulu.com/johnbooth
Contact the author directly at booth@fieldsedge.com.


Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek: The First 30 Years
Copyright 2008 by John Booth
123 pages, 6” by 9” trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4357-4376-2

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About John Booth: John is a northeast Ohio writer and graduate of Bowling Green State University. He has worked as a news reporter, blogger, columnist, feature writer and sports reporter. His writing has been honored by the Associated Press Society of Ohio,The Press Club of Cleveland, and the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of a novel, Crossing Decembers, and blogs regularly at http://johnbooth.wordpress.com