All posts by stephen

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The printed book survives to fight another day.

Nearly 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,

Free rare book room listings for booksellers

The 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

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I Shall Buy Books on Ebay No More Forever

I 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

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Selling Used Childrens’ Books Is Not a Crime!

Many 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

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Blogging from beyond the grave

The 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

Steal this e-book

I’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

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Summer Reading

Publishers 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

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Spam for breakfast

It’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