cosmopolis

For sale -- sold (3)

to Myopic with:

G. Cabrera Infante, Three Trapped Tigers  (rough jacket, sunned boards)
T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (review copy)
Prudence Glynn, Skin to Skin (Oxford). Carried this baby around forever.
Cheeni Rao, In Hanuman's Hands (review copy)
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access
Oscar Hammerstein II, Carmen Jones (I thought this was a first)
Marjorie Williams, The Woman at the Washington Zoo
Patrick White, The Twyborn Affair (US edition)
Alan Jacobs, Original Sin: A Cultural History (paperback review copy)
Roberto Bolano, 2666. First UK, second printing.
Inventions of the Middle Ages (Folio). Freebie.
Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (paperback review copy)
Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (UK, second printing)

Rejected: The White (surprisingly), the Rifkin (unsurprisingly) and the Jacobs. Net haul was $32 in cash or $38 in trade. I took the cash, a little miffed it wasn't more.

This is what happens when you fire all the copy editors

Copy-editing is a luxury newspapers can no longer afford. Which means you're going to see a lot more stories like one, a feature on Samuel R. Delany in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

-- "Delany's later books deftly apply the dense theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Michel Althusser" ....I think you mean Louis Althusser?

-- "David Hartwell, publisher of the New York Review of Science Fiction and a senior editor at Tor/Forge, a major sci-fi publishing house, says Delany was one of a number of young writers, including Thomas M. Dish..." That would be "Disch."

-- "  'His range of characters was unprecedented,' said Philadelphia sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Swankier." Sigh. Swanwick, you idiot.

This was harder to check:

"Much of Delany's post-sci-fi output explores gay sexuality - a subject of intense personal interest to Delany, who says he has had "at least 50,000 sexual partners, all of the passing and very casual sort." That's three or four a day, every day of the year, for 40 years. Possible, perhaps, but how did he find the time to write all those books?

Disappearing Bookstores II

On a visit to San Francisco, I stopped at the Great Overland Book Co. branch off Union Street, a store where parking is always difficult but it is generally worth the hunt. Overland is a neighborhood store but a high quality one; I bought a run of Hermann Hesse's there once. This time, uncharacteristically, the stock seemed lackluster. Closer examination showed why: the store is closing next month, leaving only one Overland, in Inner Sunset. 

Kathy at Book Bay told me that Mcdonalds on Turk Street (better known by its self-description as "a dirty, poor-lit place for books") was also closing. Mcdonalds was in the only part of town that has remained determinedly skanky. Even when you got inside, the smell of piss seemed to trail you. I went once, years ago, and never went back. 

Up in Davis, Bogey's Books closed a few months ago when the owner decided he had had enough. An employee wanted to buy it, but was stymied by a rent increase. It was a small but pleasant store full of recent reading copies of serious books.

For sale -- sold (2)

John Prados, Vietnam: The History of an UnWinnable War. Review copy.

Thomas Mann, This Peace. Knopf, 1938. War damage on book and boards.

Amos Oz, Rhyming Life and Death. First UK, slightly damaged.

Anton Chekhov, Forty Stories. Vintage.

Siegred Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. Folio reprint.

Paul Stiles, Riding the Bull. Confessions of a Merrill analyst.

Jose Saramago, Seeing. Water damage.

Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions. First deluxe paper edition.

Joseph Epstein, Partial Payments. Norton, review copy.

Mickey Pearlman, Listen to the Voices: Twenty Interviews With Women Who Write.

Ben Greenman, Superbad. McSweeney's.

Anne Carson, Men in the Off hours. Signed. Remainder dot, some rubbing on jacket.

George Seferis, Poems. Little Brown, reprint.

Elias Canetti, The Voices of Marrakesh. Sunned spine, water damage.

Lebek: A City of Northern Europe Through the Ages.

Paperbacks: The Silver Stallion, The Hobbit, Lilith

The verdict: All sold to Myopic except the three fantasy paperback, the Epstein (dissing a Chicago writer), the Wall Street book, and the Mickey Pearlmen interviews. They'll all go to the thrift store, the last stop on the food chain. Next take: $46, cash.

Earlier, I went to the Pulp and Paper Convention out in suburban Lombard. Basically, you paid $25 to get into a dealer's room. First table I walk to, first book I see, there it is: Conjure Wife, in the solo Twayne edition. I have been looking for this book for 20 years, ever since I first visited Leiber in San Francisco in the late 1980s. It was $100 and in nice shape, which it never is on the few occasions it shows up. (Three copies online, they all suck.) I figured no one cared, since the dealer's room was in its 10th hour. So I said, as one does, I'll be back. Alas, an hour later it was gone. There's a moral there.

I bought instead a copy of The Farthest Shore, price-clipped but otherwise fine. There's a production flaw on the rear board, but it's still better than my copy (albeit unsigned) and better than any copy online. Cost: $80.

Also, a copy of Whip Hand by Franklin Sanders, otherwise known as Charles Willeford. Published by Fawcett in 1961, it's fine except for an "A" in ink above the title, which will have to be chemically removed. The seller refused to take a check, thinking it might bounce. I gave him $30 in cash. Between the Covers is offering a copy for $400.

Two books at $110, plus $25 admission, minus $46 profit: $89 outlay.