Borders and Noble

[Joaquin Stick]

I haven't had a chance to review the NYT article, but this shouldn't come
as much of a surprise to anyone who has had to buy books for an English
course in the last twenty years or so. Ever priced the difference between
a small press book and a Books-a-Million Random House monster printing? I
just paid $22.50 for a 130-page paperback reprint of Ida Fink's short
stories because Northwestern Univ. Press had to reprint it since its
original publisher (M**millan...names have been changed to protect the
guilty) wouldn't keep it in print (no money in all that nasty Holocaust
business anymore). Now college textbooks, especially graduate course
textbooks are ridiculously overpriced already (as we all probably know
well enough) and, although I dutifully went down to Barnes and (ig)noble
for my 30% off copy of M&D the day it came out (face it, $30 was a lot for
that sucker, no matter how much you wanted it...), I would much, much,
much rather drag down to a used bookstore and find a somewhat dog-eared,
slightly mottled, bedraggled copy of _Myra Breckenridge_, _This Way for
the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen_, "Under the Rose"_ (found a 1st edition
paper-wrapped printing of this for $5 in Raleigh, NC) or anything else
than pay for the "avant-garde" cover art on Gigantic, Enormous and
Mainstream Publishing Co.'s reprint of Bridges of Madison County.

Let's hear it for second-hand bookstores, the best thing ever to happen to
small-town librarians, small-town English professors and educated readers
everywhere! (when you think about it, they're kind of like W.A.S.T.E. in
this day and age of outlet-bookstores)

My two cents' worth. My personal fave of Chapel Hill second-handers is at
http://www.avidreader.com 

D. Alfred Fledermaus

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dmaus at email.unc.edu     	         "Joaquin Stick and Decoverley
UNC-CH, Dept. of English                Pox...were wasted gods urging on 
http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/joaquin.htm           a tardy glacier"
					      --Gravity's Rainbow
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