Carl Hiaasen's TOURIST SEASON

I read this back in 1991, before the days when I kept a reading journal. But I remember how much I enjoyed the manic weirdness and how much I looked forward to more from Hiaasen. My boss at the time, Phil G., recommended it to me and boy was he right.

The construction of the book is pretty typical Putnam, of the mid 80's, paper boards over cloth backstrap, quarto, a fairly high acid paper that can tone quite easily. The jacket is pretty durable, though. First edition typified by First Edition slug with a number line down to '1.' I don't know of any subsequent printings as these were remaindered in decent quantities.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** Tomorrow I'm having my last Bonanza of the year. Maybe you can find something there you like, but even if not, check out Bonanzle for yourself. The fastest growing sales site on the net.

*** Did you know that The Guinness Book of World Records only has one printing? It's true. Once it's sold out, it's sold out. And despite an 11% increase in copies this year, the publisher has completely sold through their stock.

*** The cathartic aftermath of losing Forrest J. Ackerman continues as those who knew him grieve and remember. I was not so privileged, but knowing he was around somehow made life a little better. Heaven is probably filled with lots of Forrest Ackerman's.

25 things we miss about Uncle Forry

*** Sal Yvars had passed away. Sal was a baseball player, a catcher, who supposedly signaled Bobby Thompson that a fastball was headed his way during a game in 1951, a pitch that Thompson smacked out of the park for one of the most famous home runs in history, 'The Shot Heard Round the World.' Whether Yvars did this or not still isn't known for certain, but the incident has been written about in a number of books and so merits a very tenuous mention in this blog. (I wasn't sure if the connection was close enough to books so I asked the editor, who okayed its inclusion. Of course, I'm the editor.)

*** In the 'the horse is dead, let's see if we can beat it back to life' category, a new trend for Ebay-ites fed up with John Donahoe's nonsense is for sellers to sue buyers who leave them negative feedback. This, of course, is necessitated because JD left them no option when he shut down what had always made Ebay work, its two-way feedback system. Who said the collapse of a major corporation wasn't entertaining?

This ought to get Ebay some good press

*** I guess we've all heard of the King James Bible. I didn't realize that only 50 copies of the first 1611 edition still existed. The linked article has a nice photo of one that was donated to Hardin-Simmons University. This is the sort of story that appeals to my imagination, because it is possible that William Shakespeare could have handled that very book. (Yes, yes, I know the odds and everything. Jeez, can't a guy dream?)

And if flights of fancy don't appeal to you, the story of the couple who donated the Bible, along with a whole collection of other Bibles and related material, is quite touching. Karma can be bad, but it can also be very, very good.

Rare 1611 King James Bible

*** Finally, yes, it's my mom's 91st birthday today. I wish I was half as spry. Happy Birthday Mom!

A Con, an artist and a con artist

Good day bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** Finally, finally, Midsouthcon has updated their guest list for 2009. Among the regulars Glen Cook will be back. He's a pretty interesting guy and usually has a good selection of books for sale. CJ Cherryh will be making a return visit in 2009. This is a good con, not small but not huge, either. Fun times.

Midsouthcon

*** Rare books remain rare and desirable, even in the midst of slow economic times. We have seen this during every previous slowdown and it appears to be the case again. Indeed, if upward price pressure does slacken, the well-financed collector or speculator can get a really good deal, then cash in when things turn upward and realize a much higher profit than in many more traditional venues.

And that goes for cute bears with an addiction to honey, too, as we see indicated by this auction of some rare Winnie books with hand-drawn illustrations by A.A. Milne.

Winnie the Pooh and big bucks, too!

*** As I continue to chronicle Ebay's slow sinking into the west, the question might arise as to why your friendly neighborhood bookseller spends so much time on this topic. After all, this is supposed to be a book blog, right? Well, I joined Ebay in August, 1998, just a month after starting my business. In the ensuing decade I sold more than 3,000 books there and bought more than 1,000. It was a major part of both my selling and my collecting.

That all changed when some con artist convinced the doofi (plural of doofus) running Ebay that something called 'disruptive innovation' was an actual business strategy instead of what it really was, just screwing everything up to see what happened. No matter whether something had been successful or not, it was changed for the worse. The idea, if you can call it that, seems to be that if you drive every single person away from a site, you will then be able to start over and make it even better. I know that doesn't make sense, but objective observation can come to no other conclusion.

Of course, when the company finally completes its collapse, the con artist will be on a beach somewhere spending the mega-millions he convinced the doofi to pay him for destroying their company.

What a world.

*** The linked article does a terrific job of summing up just how badly Ebay is being run these days. During the last recession the company prospered, as by its very nature it should, but this time around the frantic moron at the top made sure that would not happen, as that would defeat his dream of a billion dollar company with no page views and no customers.

Viewed objectively, there is really no other conclusion. The transition from an auction model to a fixed price one did not have to be antagonistic toward sellers, who are also in many cases buyers. It did not have to destroy businesses and lives, or create such a tidal wave of negative feelings. That it has done so can only have been deliberate. And who in their right mind would deliberately drive their your best customers? Either a lunatic or a moron. Being that I'm a nice guy, I'm going with moron.

Ebay's continuing slide into irrelevance

*** Yet more analysts weigh in down-grading Ebay. If I posted all of these I run across this blog would run out of storage space.

Two more think Ebay is sinking

Cleaning the pipes

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** Veteran bookies, especially those who know me from the AOL Mystery/Thriller and Hardboiled boards, know that I am generally favorable toward any author, regardless of whether or not I read them or agree with their ideas, with one exception: Patricia Cornwell. I have read the first 7 Scarpetta books. The first one was brilliant, the second one quite good, the third one pretty good, the 4th okay, the 5th-7th descending from fair to pathetic. After that I no longer cared. A number of bookstore managers have also told me that, in person, she just isn't a very nice person.

So it is with smug satisfaction that I note the newest Scarpetta book being heavily discounted at the big chain stores, up to 50%, to try and keep as many of them as possible off the remainder tables. Maybe, just maybe, her publisher will decide to give some new up-and-comer a chance next time, instead of cluttering the bookshelves with 5 million copies of whatever her next book is that few people want to buy. Quit paying her to write drek and give that money to a new writer with something to say!

*** For your Memphis and Mid-South bookies, check out Davis-Kidd this Saturday at 1 pm. They are hosting five Memphis authors for a mass book-signing. Perre Magness is probably the most eminent Memphis historian currently working. Should be fun.

Joe Cooper, Sr., Bryan Davis, Perre Magness,
John Pritchard, and Andre Bruce Ward
Saturday, December 13th at 1:00 pm
Davis-Kidd tries to support Memphis’ authors, as well as authors in the surrounding areas, any way we can. And, as we prepare to ‘deck our halls,’ we invite the community to join together at its favorite independent bookstore to celebrate the talent Memphis writers have displayed in print over the past few years. The five local authors listed below will be present to discuss and sign their respective titles:

Joseph M. Cooper, Sr., Jesus My Hero
Bryan Davis, Eternity’s Edge
Perre Magness, Memphis: A Children’s History
John Pritchard, The Yazoo Blues
Andre Bruce Ward, Andre: Thirty Years of Costume Design at Theatre Memphis

*** Now comes what might turn into a rant. If it does, I apologize in advance.

A very knowledgeable customer called today to ask a question that, 10 years ago, I almost never heard. I had a book listed as a 'First Edition,' and this gentleman wanted to know if it was also a First Printing. To me, growing up in the pre-internet world of book buying, if a book stated that it was a First Edition, it was a given that it was also a First Printing. No reputable bookseller would advertise a 'First Edition' that was a 5th or 8th printing, without that later printing having been noted. Nor will reputable booksellers do that now.

However, in the pre-internet era, a seller who did use what I can only describe as a deceptive practice might have gotten away with it for a while, but not forever. The book collecting community would have spread the word and such a person would have had difficulty staying afloat.

No longer. In the era of scanner people (or book-mongers, if you prefer) who know nothing about books and could not bother themselves to learn anything, you wind up with lots of listings on the major selling sites where a 'First Edition' might easily be a 40th printing. In some cases that isn't relevant, the buyer only wants a reading copy and the printing doesn't matter. But when I find myself being asked about expensive or scarce books being a first or later printing, it clues me in that these buyers have been stiffed one too many times in the past and have become gun-shy buying over the net. Nor can I blame them.

You see, we booksellers know the scanner people better than most. Some are fine, honest folk. Many are not. And it's these people who have clogged the selling sites with junk listings that make finding collectible copies so hard. (But not at Worldbookmarket.com)

So from here on out BBG finds it necessary to alter how he lists books, to now include the slug First Edition, first printing. It's silly, it's two extra words to say the same thing I have always said, but when customers are forced to call me to ask questions that should be a given, it's time to adapt.

Rant over. Unforgiveable advertising gimmick still to come.


Warning! Cheesy sales plug coming. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Bonanza coming, Bonanza coming! This Saturday, 1-4 CST. Where? My Bonanzle booth, of course. http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/Billthebookguy

What's a bonanza? For that matter, what's a Bonanzle.com? Loyal bookies may remember that Bonanzle is the new (and fastest growing on the internet) selling site that is sort of part Craigslist, part Ebay, part common sense. I have a smallish but growing numbers of choice books there. A bonanza is a sale, in this case a massive 20% off what is listed there. I know, I know, you're worried about me now, 20% is too much, I'm being too generous, you would prefer to only save 10%.

Not to fret. 20% is actually a bite, granted, but your friendly neighborhood bookseller is only concerned about your happiness, and if saving you 20% during this 3 hour window makes you happy, then I'm happy.

End of shameless advertisement

*** Finally, my apologies for today's blog being mostly comment and little news. I'll do better tomorrow.

Snots, a ghost town and the passing of an icon

Good morning bookies! Read on for news and comment.

*** If you want to know why the New York Times (All the News That's Fit to Invent!) is going bankrupt, you need read no further than this editorial about Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin writing books. According to the snots running the Worst Newspaper in America, only they and those they deem worthy should be allowed to write a book. People such as Joe and Palin simply have nothing to say and should not be allowed to dilute the literary pool.

I really, really cannot stand literary snobs. Especially snobs working at a paper that has had more scandals in the last decade than you can count on one hand. So let's be clear: this is still America, you can write and read what you choose, whether The New York Snides think it's worthwhile or not. Indeed, their condemnation is a plus.

To be clear, I cannot imagine reading either book written by Joe or Sarah. Not that I agree or disagree with their politics, that's beside the point. It's just not what I read. But then, I cannot imagine anyone reading a lot of stuff that I dislike. So what? Just because I don't like it doesn't mean others won't find value. So if you are a writer and you get a book published, good for you! Whether the New York Snides approve or not.

New York Times opines from their ivory tower

*** Ebay's continuing effort to drive every person from their site is beginning to meet with success. Alternatives such as ecrater, ebid and, BBG's favorite, Bonanzle, are heating up, seeing visitors and sales skyrocket and are quietly becoming a force to be reckoned with. If John Donahoe's mission was to turn Ebay into a ghost town, he's on the right track.

Ebay running off every last customer

*** Memphians will mourn the passing of Fred Cook. No, he wasn't an author, but he was a local icon. For years he was a fixture on local radio. He and John Powell entertained the city for a long time beginning in the 60's with The Zero Hour, a Seinfeld-esque program about nothing in particular. He was also the announcer for the Memphis State Tigers in the days when they played at the Mid-South Coliseum.

Pearl Harbor and MrsP

*** As history flows all around us, as we read daily of momentous events and happenings, what we do not see are the smaller stories that never make the news, or the plans that are discussed but never carried out. When something historically important happens, historians then research everything surrounding that event to see whether or not their were ancillary plans that could have influenced history one way or the other. And there are few events in the unfolding history of Mankind more seminal than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred 67 years ago today.

Seemingly every scrap of information about that attack, and the events leading up to it, have been debated and discussed and dissected ad infinitum. You would think that we know everything there is to know.

Maybe not. Author Alan Armstrong's new book, Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor, postulates that the Japanese learned of a hare-brained scheme to bomb Japan from Chinese bases, using twin-engined Lockheed Hudson bombers.

Now, from our vantage point this is truly idiotic. The Hudson wound up serving a vital role in WW2 as a patrol bomber, that is, a small bomber with long range that could go out and hunt subs and generally serve as an early warning system around Australia and the U.S., or England. Not particularly fast, not well-armed and carrying a pretty small bomb load, what they were not suited for was any sort of strategic bombing role. And yet, according to Armstrong's new book, that is precisely what was proposed they do, attack Japanese industrial targets from Chinese bases.

Could this rather naive plan have done any harm to the Japanese whatsoever? Maybe if you'd had 10,000 Hudsons they would have noticed. But the concept that somehow a small number of these light bombers would force the Japanese to withdraw from China is incomprehensible. And, if the author is correct and the Japanese learned of the plan and this influenced them to attack Pearl Harbor first, and that's a big if, then the plan goes from merely inane to criminal.

Could important US officials have been this stupid?

*** It seems fitting that on the anniversary of the USA being dragged into World War II we have more than one book review on the topic, this time a little known mission by the OSS, forerunner of the CIA, the sort of thing that its leader 'Wild Bill' Donovan loved.

The Brenner Pass was and is the valley connecting Austria and Italy, a vital link through the Alps that is crucial for any commerce between the two countries. Bring down the pass blocking the link and it makes it very hard for either country to help the other. Thus was a mission born that sounds far-fetched in hindsight, but well worth the gamble during wartime.

The Brenner Assignment by noted historian Patrick K. O'Donnell looks like just the sort of thing your friendly neighborhood bookseller would want to read on a cold winter's night. Or a great Christmas gift for a WW2 buff.

A small, gallant mission

*** Keeping with today's unintended theme of history as blog-fodder, one biography I would dearly love to carve out time to read is Jon Meacham's American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Indeed, were that there was a prequel to this detailing his entire life, but it seems pretty clear now that Jackson was way ahead of his time politically and, since he is a Tennessean and so am I, I should know quite a bit more about him than I do. so that's going on the -to-do list for 2009 along with curing cancer and getting rich.

Jackson in the White House

*** Finally, since this is the season of giving, I'll do something I don't usually do and recommend another website. MrsP.com is devoted to promoting reading for children and I can't see one darned thing wrong with that. I non-commercial site, I can only assume that MrsP either is independently wealthy or maybe has a grant of some kind. However she can afford to publish her site, it's a good place for the young ones.

http://mrsp.com/

Bye Forrie

Good morning bookies! It's Saturday! Stand by for news and comment.

*** As I sat here downing my first cup of coffee and listening to the radio, willing the neurons to begin firing, I heard on the news of the passing of Forrest J. Ackerman. For those who don't know, Ackerman was one of the earlier founders of modern SFF, is credited with having coined the term 'Sci-Fi', discovered and became literary agent for Ray Bradbury, agented Isaac Asimov and others, wrote a few stories, lots of essays and articles and, in general, was a jack-of-all-trades for an industry that mainstream publishers felt was nonsense and not worth their trouble.

I met Ackerman once, at DragonCon 1998, and remember him as a very kind, gentle-seeming man. One morning during the con, BBG and his posse were having breakfast at the hotel restaurant and at the next table, drinking coffee and chatting, were Bradbury, Ackerman and Harlan Ellison. It was amazing to consider the talent assembled at that one small table. It's a great example of what makes attending conventions so much fun. I'll miss knowing Ackerman is around, not so much that he directly made my life better, just because I felt better knowing men such as he were in the world.

So long to an old friend I didn't know

*** Ebay has no sense of irony. They are doing absolutely everything they can to crush the small sellers on their site, while simultaneously their lobbyists are in front of Congress whining about big box retailers trying to crush the small sellers. Have they no shame? Well, aside from that being a rhetorical question, the answer is no, they don't.

Ebay has become just another big corporation. Now, you're friendly neighborhood bookseller is not someone who automatically dislikes big corps. After all, who works at big corps? People do, although the theory that some corporate upper management types might be either part or completely machine-driven does seem to hold water in some cases. I knew this guy once when I worked in the corporate world who...wait, wrong topic. Sorry. Where was I? Oh, Ebay. Right.

Ebay began life as the ultimate egalitarian website. Level the playing field, let the little guy make a buck, fight back against the corporate bullies, all that good stuff. Except now Ebay has become what they were created to fight. Do John Donahoe and team see the irony? They must, surely. Nobody could be blind or stupid enough not to understand. So if we give them enough credit to understand the irony of the situation, then we also have to conclude that they don't care.

Ebay's whining again

*** Tomorrow is the 67th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This isn't about a book, but the topic is one that BBG happens to be pretty familiar with, having read almost everything he can find about the attack. So with the anniversary once more rolling around we are seeing the same tired old conspiracies dragged out that FDR knew the Japanese were going to attack and allowed it to happen so the USA would be forced into WW2. The following article makes the case fairly succinctly for the 'FDR knew' school of thought.

FDR knew the Japanese were coming, and other bedtime stories

What is never pointed out by such conspiracy theories is this: a Japanese surprise attack on WW2 was a declaration of war, period. There was no reason to allow the fleet to be destroyed, it would have served our purposes just as well for the Japanese to have found the naval base on alert and the air filled with US fighters. Only the silliest of the lot give FDR the prescience to know that battleships were obsolete and to allow them to be destroyed because they had such low value.

If this topic interest you or someone you know, you can pick up Gordon Prange's trilogy on Pearl Harbor fairly cheaply. At Dawn We Slept, December 7, 1941 and Pearl Harbor, the Verdict of History. Granted, it's aging a bit, and here and there a fact or detail may have been overruled by later research, but I haven't read anything that is comprehensively better, or better written.

Friday (what an inspired blog title, huh?)

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** There appears to be an interesting change in online sales this season. It's too early to go into detail, I'll wait until January and look by to see if I'm correct. But, if I am, then there is a sea change at work here and it bodes ill for the Ebays of the world, who believe they can bully the marketplace into doing as they wish instead of giving the market what it wants. Anyway, the sampling is still too small to be conclusive.

*** Dorothy Sterling has died, aged 95. Her 1954 book Freedom Train was an early inspiration as the Civil Tights movement was gaining steam.

*** There is a major re-organization underway at Random House. Now, this isn't necessarily a normal topic for this blog, but the linked article is a pretty interesting behind-the-scenes look at the people who select and publish the books that are a normal concern here-abouts, so it seemed appropriate.

Watching Random morph

*** In another life I could easily have been quite happy as a bookbinder. No kidding. I've never done it, of course, I doubt many people have these days, but I suspect I would have been good at it. As a kid I built model airplanes and did quite well, I was a fine painter and could see myself working with signatures and goatskin and parchment.

Anyway, in a world that is overwhelmed with awards and best-of lists, one of the few that impress me are the awards given out by the Bookbinder's Guild of New York. These are the people are publishers who still give a damn.

A craft not yet lost

*** A follow-up article to the blog entry about the world's most expensive new book. The $126,000 table sized book (literally) of Michelangelo's work has gone on display in, where else?, New York. With my luck I would own a copy and one of my dogs would chew the corners.

This book or a house, which would you choose?

No contest

Good morning bookies! It's Thursday, time for news and comment.

*** Good grief. Ebay can't even run a contest right these days. What a mess. You have to wonder if they are screwing up the site on purpose, because if they aren't, they should be. With page views down, time spent on the site down, the stock way down, even the dunces running the company realized something was wrong, so they had the good idea to do something about it. Fix what they had screwed up?

Well, no.

They decided that what Ebay needed was a contest! That's right, some good old-fashioned smoke and mirrors. But at least a contest might draw in traffic and drum up some good will, right? Wrong. At least, wrong when you leave it open to automated scripts and wind up angering the very people they were trying to make happy. Like every single change Ebay has made since disruptive destroyer Donahoe took over, this latest debacle has the feeling of haste and waste written all over it.

Ebay screws up their own contest

*** It has long been said that the book publishing industry is recession proof. I've never quite understood that logic, in the final analysis books are a commodity in many way, but that has been the common wisdom. At least until now. The big boys of publishing, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, they are all down-sizing, laying off and in general consolidating.

Darwinism in the publishing world?

From this vantage point, however, this might not be all bad. In the end the industry will be forced to change, to take a long, hard look at itself, and that is generally a good thing. What may emerge is a better, more responsive publishing industry. What form this will take is hard to say with certainty, but it's entirely possible that small publishers will have a new chance to make inroads into the market, something they did not have before. After all, book distributors have to have books to distribute, and if the big houses aren't supplying them they will have to look elsewhere.

As all bookies who are addicted to this blog know, Ebay is a frequent topic here because your friendly neighborhood bookseller once sold lots and lots of books on Ebay, that is, until they went and screwed up the site and...and...wait, where was I? Oh, that's right. As everyone knows, Ebay's declaration of war on sanity has given new startup competitors a chance to make inroads into the marketplace, and in John Donahoe's wreckage-strewn wake such potentially lethal adversaries as Atomic Mall and Wigix and, my current favorite, Bonanzle.com, have sprung up to challenge the king of the hill. And there is no reason to think something similar cannot happen in any industry, including publishing.

Alice, Ebay and old books

Good morning bookies! It's Tuesday, stand by for news and comment.

Note to my loyal readers: sorry about no blog yesterday, I hadn't realized the level of addiction for some of you. I'll try to do better in the future.

*** Ebay continues to crumble and the word is spreading. Sure, you see local news stories about selling stuff on Ebay in this down economy, just as I saw one yesterday. But, weirdly, it was almost like the news-bot knew it was an obligatory story, that they didn't believe it and didn't expect us to, either.

In the bigger world there continue to be more and more media picking up on the hard facts of Ebay's continuing collapse, as evidenced by the linked story. If you want the stats, here they are. Wow, even I hadn't realized how bad this was becoming.

John Donahoe's vision of perfection is a site with zero traffic

*** Antiquarian books are fascinating. The effort necessary to print a book in the centuries before the modern era was so great that it's a wonder so many were, in fact, printed. When you visit one of the great libraries of the world, such as Trinity College in Dublin or Melk Abbey in Austria, the experience is so overwhelming that you cannot really comprehend what you are seeing. Thousands upon thousands of carefully crafted books from centuries long past, each with its own unique history, with notes in the marginalia and the endpapers from users long gone, so many detective stories waiting to be investigated. It's too much for one brief visit, as on a tour.

So when your friendly neighborhood bookseller runs across a story like the one linked below he is naturally drawn to it. One such book is a different matter, one story to be discovered and admired is something the mind can decipher. And I'm so thankful there are still places in the world that value this knowledge and are willing to protect it for the future.

The Breviarium Ratisponense was printed in Strasbourg, Germany, in 1482. 10 years before Columbus was exploring. This book existed before anyone in Europe knew that American existed. Amazing.

Canadians acquire a very old and rare religious tome

*** Today's World War II book review (it does seem like there's a new book daily, doesn't it?) concerns Kristillnacht, the Night of Broken Crystal in November, 1938, when the Nazis really turned up the meter on their 'Persecute-the-Jews' machine. Destroying buildings, burning books, killing and incarcerating people, this highly-orchestrated 'spur-of-the-moment' supposed national outrage at the murder of a low-ranking diplomat in Paris by a Jewish teenager turned out to be a fiasco for the Nazis, at least in the PR department. Aside from the enormous material losses to a country that was for from rich to begin with, the nationwide pogrom made it clear to even the most sympathetic Nazi apologists that these guys were out of control.

The Shards of Kristillnacht by Mitchell Bard is a re-examination of that seminal moment in time when the Western World finally began to wake to the dangers of the Nazis.

Kristallnacht under the microscope

*** Playwright William Gibson has died aged 94, reports AP. He is best known for The Miracle Worker, which in turn is best known for the film adaptation that projected Patty Duke into stardom.

*** Now that his parents are both gone, Christopher Buckley is taking his chance to cash in before their memories fade. He wrote Losing Mom and Pop and, frankly, warns that the book isn't going to be all that pretty. Indeed, the early word makes it sounds like a bashing of his parents, which will no doubt sell a lot of books to people like Gore Vidal, who can't get enough of bashing William F. Buckley and humanity in general.

Christopher worked at his father's magazine, National Review, wrote essentially conservative books and articles and generally sounded like his father's son, until his father passed away. Then, overnight, he made it known that none of that was really him, that is was all a facade. He had never really believed any of that stuff, he was just making dad happy. Sure gives him credibility in my book.

Christopher Buckley trades his parents memory for cold, hard cash

Note: re-reading this it sounds pretty harsh, so maybe I'm being unfair. If so, well, mea culpa.


*** Amazon has completed their acquisition of ABEbooks. For this one I don't need a link: as an ABE seller of more than 10 years I view the companies assertion that 'nothing will change' as both a skeptic, and one who hopes it isn't true. Because the truth is that ABE is a mess and has been for a long time. Sellers have no idea what is coming next, the fees are outrageously high and there is absolutely no consistency, no vision. Will Amazon change this? I don't see why they would, unless it's to increase fees even more. Will any good come of this? Probably not. But in the end it is doubtful that it matters, ABE just isn't the force that it once was.

*** J.K. Rowling's latest book, The Tales of Beetle the Bard, hits stores Thursday and I could not be more glad. It's not that I'm a Harry Potter-ite: I haven't read the books and don't intend to do so, although I enjoy the movies. But anything that keeps people reading, especially young people, is fine by me, especially when it is also educational. Take the title of her latest, for example. The word 'bard' is probably unknown to most younger people, and while the lyric quality sounds nice in the title, there is no doubt that readers will want to know exactly what a 'bard' is. Good stuff, I hope she sells a billion copies, even better that the proceeds to to charity.

*** Lastly, in the books-I-would-love-to-own category, The Folio Society, in conjunction with The British Library, is issuing two new versions of the original Alice's Adventures Underground by Lewis Carroll. Either would be nice, but the leather Folio Society version is delightful.

Want to buy me something?