Sept. 27

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news.

The weather is Memphis today is gorgeous. The sky is that blue that is clean and bright and utterly indescribable. A warm sun promises the grass will need to be cut into the foreseeable future. The perfect day for book scouting, but your friendly neighborhood bookseller figures writing this blog is more important than digging for treasure, which is another way of saying he's feeling lazy today.

An interesting site I found today if you're an old book person. I haven't had time to really investigate the site the way it deserves, but it's obvious that someone has a serious case of bookaholism. Admiration from this corner, sympathy and understanding. This sort of obsession plugs right into my brain receptors. The owner makes some bigtime mistakes, most notably in his list of book description terms. For the record, the word 'Mint' has NO business in a book description. For restaurants and coin dealers 'Mint' might be appropriate, but not for books. And his ideas of where to buy used books are about five years out of date. But those sorts of errors can be more than forgiven by his impressive research on old books and authors. I'm grateful for such people.
http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm

The Great Ebay Con by Stephen MyCoe. In this new book, a former Ebay employee reveals what a mess the company has become, and how you, too, can con your way into getting anything for free. Deal with Ebay at your own risk, bookies.

I think by now my opinions on dealing with Ebay are pretty familiar. But if you don't like my opinion on this, try http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080926/e_commerce_ahead_of_the_bell.html?.v=1

There, got the link fixed and it should work. The gist is that Ebay is bleeding customers because of their blizzard of new rules and it's hard to see where and how they will replace them. To be clear, though, I have absolutely nothing against Ebay itself. If the Ebay of 2004 were to suddenly reappear I could by and sell there with a clear conscience. It's the vicious Ebay of 2008 that I find objectionable.

I just heard that Paul Newman died. Like everyone else who watched him work and admired the way he lived his life, this is a sad day.