I bought a copy of Harry Warner, Jr.’s 1969 history of science fiction fandom, All Our Yesterdays, during the early ’70s when I was first entering that fandom. I read it and loved it, but I haven’t reread it since.

So why am I rereading it now?

Amazingly, Warner himself—who won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer as a result of this book—answered that question in the second half of the last sentence to his Foreword:

Finally, I cling to a hope that today’s active and gafiated fans will find pleasure in reviewing the events in which they took part, and that the fans who came into the hobby recently will find in the book reason to take more philosophically their fannish troubles, through the discovery that we went through the same mishaps so many years ago.

Emphasis mine.

And that’s exactly why I’ve started rereading All Our Yesterdays. Because considering our own current “fannish troubles,” I thought I might find some solace there, and do what Warner suggests—take it more philosophically.

Either way … I’ll let you know.