The printed book survives to fight another day.
Thursday, April 30th, 2009Nearly buried under news about Google’s rights to distribute ebooks was a quiet announcement of a long awaited change to the book industry. The Times was one of a fairly small number of media sources that covered the trial installation of the Espresso Book Machine, a print on demand book vending machine. Unveiled last week [...]
Some Good News for Independent Bookstores in the New Economy
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009Indiebound.com mentioned a heartening story from the Boston Globe about an independent brick and mortar bookstore in Coolidge Corner, Massachusetts that is succeeding in the face of direct competition from a major national chain rival. Maybe this is an isolated case, but I tend to believe that the current economic environment is forcing people to [...]
Free rare book room listings for booksellers
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009The Rare Book Room on Biblio has always been one of my personal favorite features of the site. After years of being surfeited by the piles of “Acceptable” condition books on the internet these days, the Rare Book Room is a place of beauty and tranquility for me. Formerly, Biblio.com Booksellers were charged a one [...]
I Shall Buy Books on Ebay No More Forever
Sunday, February 1st, 2009I don’t understand the bookseller who advertises a book club edition as the first edition, but I’ve fallen for it twice. Too much in a hurry for a deal, twice I’ve found Ebay auctions for one of my favorite modern firsts and believed the description “First Edition.” First edition, for modern book collecting purposes, means [...]
Selling Used Childrens’ Books Is Not a Crime!
Friday, January 16th, 2009Many of us in the US book selling community have been concerned about recent legislation that was intended to offer new safety standards for children’s products. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) was created to address concerns about harmful substances, such as lead, found in children’s toys being sold in the US. The wording [...]
Blogging from beyond the grave
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009The Orwell Prize has taken blogging to a new place and time. The British prize annual British prize for excellence in political writing takes its name from writer George Orwell. Beginning in August of 2008, the Orwell Prize has taken an innovative approach to presenting Orwell’s diary in the form of daily blog posts. Published [...]
A reading list inspired by watching TV
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008I was watching TV recently, and caught the movie High Fidelity again. Before anyone can begin their moral assessment of me, I did read the book many years ago, before the movie came out, but the movie is what inspired me to create my own Top 5 List. We all know the literary cannon; the [...]
Steal this e-book
Thursday, June 26th, 2008I’ve never liked the idea of electronic text as a replacement for the printed book. I borrowed a Kindle e-book reader from a friend recently, and whether of not it was my prejudice, I found it pretty much a neat toy, but not a viable way to read a book. This morning, driving into work, [...]
Summer Reading
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Publishers are convinced that readers want unsubstantial books for summer reading, but I’m not sure where that comes from. Sure, winter’s cloistered depths are a great time to read Kafka and Tolstoy, huddled under heavy blankets locked in cold rooms inside, but who says that warmer temperatures mean that we can’t use our brains? Granted, [...]
Spam for breakfast
Thursday, June 5th, 2008It’s the beginning of the work day, and the first job for the day is going through the hundreds of new emails to get rid of spam. The volume of Spam email that manages to get through the spam filters is amazing. I’ve become a connoisseur of sales pitches in broken English, and a collector [...]