popeks.com: a blog about books and bookselling

Eternal Bookshelf of the Spotless Apartment

2009-04-02T20:45:00.002-04:00

2009-01-28T06:04:00.001-05:00

Cool and Unusual Bindings

2009-01-15T10:37:00.004-05:00

Abebooks just sent out an email featuring some unusual bindings and book covers.

My personal favorite:

Archival Collection of
Bookbinding Brasses

Mostly Victorian, Turn-of-the-Century, and Art Deco but ranging from early 19th century to mid-twentieth century. Of European origin; French and Italian. Mounted on 131 "cartes" of binder's board (measuring 9 x 11 inches) with double-back tape. General condition is excellent. Some of the brasses are signed by the engraver. There are approximately 6100 individual pieces plus 700 pieces of single, double, and triple rule. The collection weighs about 800 pounds. There are over 400 arabesque, fleurons, and similar ornaments; over 300 stylized or naturalistic flowers; over 800 coats-of-arms, crowns, medallions, and other devices (some commercial); over 300 solid borders, frames, panels and large corners of traditional, flower and art nouveau styles. There are about 50 composite border sets with between 50 and 200 pieces each; included are about 10 traditional arabesque and dentelle borders; 10 for floral borders; 10 typically 19th century; and 7 art nouveau with one large set of floral and abstract linear design with brasses to produce two-color work. The collection is documented in a 4 volume spiral bound catalogue (254 pages) containing proofs or photographs of each piece. Each of the 131 cartes is labeled to be cross-referenced to the catagories used in organizing the catalogues.

Item is being sold by Veatchs Arts of the Book in Northampton, MA.

3000 Hemingway Documents Released From Cuba

2009-01-07T11:02:00.001-05:00

From The Guardian.co.uk:

Cuba's has begun allowing electronic access to more than 3,000 documents from Ernest Hemingway's Cuban hideaway Finca Vigía, most of which have never been published. They include the beginning of a rejected epilogue to For Whom the Bell Tolls, and letters from a host of literary luminaries.

I bet there are some goodies in there.

The 10 Most Disturbing Novels

2008-11-17T06:46:00.003-05:00

From Listverse: (images and ecommerce links removed, if you want to buy a new copy of these, by all means visit their site!)

10
Misery

Stephen King

Anyone who has read this book will appreciate its inclusion here; if for no other reason than the axe scene (in which the protagonist chops off one of his feet with an axe - this is the hobbling scene in the movie). That scene aside, the pages upon pages of descriptions of the pain suffered by the bedridden main character, coupled with the psychological torment as he tries to move through the house unnoticed, make this a much deserved entry.

Perfume

Patrick Suskind

In 18th century France, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with no scent of his own, but with with a supernatural ability to detect the scent of others is driven to murder in order to create the perfect perfume. The book is a bizarre tale, but it is also lyrical and hypnotic–almost a fairy tale of terror. The ending is utterly vile and if you like disturbing literature, that alone makes this book worth a read. You won’t be disappointed, I promise you.

Justine

Marquis de Sade

Upon anonymous publication, this book so scandalized France that Napoleon ordered the arrest of the author, stating that the book was “the most abominable book ever engendered by the most depraved imagination”. The plot concerns Justine, who is presented with vice and abuse everywhere she turns. For example, she seeks refuge and confession in a monastery, but is forced to become a sex-slave to the monks, who subject her to countless orgies, rapes and other abuses. This is a must-read for anyone interested in French literature, the history of sadism, or disturbing literature.

American Psycho

Brett Easton Ellis

This is one of the only books that I have not finished reading. I was so horrified by a scene early in the book (involving a dog, a bum, and a very sharp knife) that I could not go on. It was my first introduction to truly disturbing writing. I have since learnt to cope better and will, eventually, give this book another go. In the novel, people are sawed in half, gutted, sliced, diced and quartered in every imaginable form. What is striking about this novel’s violence is how emotionally unattached the protagonist is to it all, he has lost all feeling for anything but the thrill of the taboo. This book will change you.

The Painted Bird

Jerzy Kosiński

The ‘Painted Bird’ is a holocaust novel that mentions the concentration camps only in passing, and rarely details the Nazis and their terrible work. This is the story of a young boy who gets separated from his parents when they send him to the (perceived) safety of the countryside when World War II breaks out in Eastern Europe. What happens to the boy - the things that are done to him, the things he sees and endures - is staggering. It’s a shocking description of hell on Earth. This book is a carnival of torture.

Geek Love

Katherine Dunn

Straddling the borderlands between realism, fantasy and horror, “Geek Love” deals with the remarkable Binewski carnival family: Arturo the Aqua-Boy, born with flippers but no limbs; the musical Siamese twins Electra and Iphigenia; the telekinetic boy-wonder Chick; and the long-suffering Olympia, our narrator, who is a bald hump-backed albino dwarf. The story progresses through the family’s relatively innocent conception into much darker territory, primarily concerning Oly’s megalomaniac brother, Arty, and eventually culminates in a catastrophic event which claims the lives of all but a few Binewskis.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver

Kevin is a 15 year old mass murderer; a child who’s been emotionally unstable all his life. This book is written from the perspective of his mother, Eva. She, too, is emotionally disturbed. Shriver does do a creepily good job of highlighting all of the real school shootings that have taken place in America in the last few years, making We Need to Talk About Kevin not just disturbing in the far-off sense, but in the sense that although this particular story isn’t real, Eva could be any number of mothers in this country whose children have done the unthinkable.

The Wasp Factory

Iain Banks

The book is told entirely by Frank, a 17 year old who manages to sound perfectly sane and rational as he explains how he killed 3 people while he was still just a child or as he performs the rituals of the Wasp Factory (bizarre rituals that need to be read to be believed). The casualnes with which violent and unpleasant events are described is possibly more horrible than the events themselves and the irony that Frank considers himself the sanest person he knows is understated throughout. “I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me.”

Glamorama

Brett Easton Ellis

I normally restrict these lists to one book per author. Today I am breaking that rule. Glamorama definitely needs to be on this list (along with the other Easton Ellis book, American Psycho) because of the gut churning violence depicted throughout the entire second half of the novel. There is a poisoning scene which you will never forget, a scene involving dismemberment (and described in every detail as is always the case with this author), and a plane crash. The book does have many elements of humor (for example, the main character, a male model, thinks that Global Warming is a type of shampoo) and I found it to be an enjoyable read, but it is definitely up there as one of the most disturbing books I have ever read.

Haunted

Chuck Palahniuk

Haunted is truly one disturbing but entertaining book of short stories. The first story is about a guy who loses some of his organs - it is the perfect example of “disturbing” literature. This is possibly the most blatantly twisted of Palahniuk’s novels; Haunted pushes the borders of what is considered socially acceptable. The book tells the story of 18 or so struggling writers who sign up for a “workshop” that involves being locked inside a dilapidated mansion for several days to develop story ideas. The chapters are the consequences of their brainstorming. One review sums up the gruesomeness of this book (and illustrates why it is item 1): “I thought that if I made it through story #1 (eating your way through your own prolapsed rectum) that I could get through anything, but I was wrong.”

Wow, two BEE books. Must have been those cold Bennington nights.

Technorati Profile

Book Foredge Painting

2008-11-01T16:12:00.000-04:00

Pretty neat!

It's like I've been telling you...

2008-10-28T18:09:00.002-04:00

Frankfurt book fair seeks hope in Web's embrace

I think big (and small) businesses are starting to get it.
From the page:

Online bookselling is the most important development in publishing in the last 60 years, according to a survey carried out by organizers of the world's biggest book fair, which begins on Tuesday and runs for a week.

It doesn't take a genius to see the potential that's here on the web. Hopefully, some of these publishers and authors will begin to see the light.

100 Best First Lines of Novels

2008-09-30T07:22:00.001-04:00

I'll give you the first 100, without comment. From infoplease:

1.	Call me Ishmael.	Herman Melville	Moby-Dick	1851
2.	It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.	Jane Austen	Pride and Prejudice	1813
3.	A screaming comes across the sky.	Thomas Pynchon	Gravity's Rainbow	1973
4.	Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.	Gabriel García Márquez (trans. Gregory Rabassa)	One Hundred Years of Solitude	1967
5.	Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.	Vladimir Nabokov	Lolita	1955
6.	Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.	Leo Tolstoy (trans. Constance Garnett)	Anna Karenina	1877
7.	riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.	James Joyce	Finnegans Wake	1939
8.	It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.	George Orwell	1984	1949
9.	It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.	Charles Dickens	A Tale of Two Cities	1859
10.	I am an invisible man.	Ralph Ellison	Invisible Man	1952

From Woot: 10 Great Countercultural Children's Books

2008-09-08T15:30:00.000-04:00

I laughed.

Homebase 3 from Abebooks - It's Here!

2008-09-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

From abebooks.com:

New Features

Real time inventory management: HomeBase 3.0 will automatically send listings and wants to Abebooks as they’re entered or edited with no need to e-mail or FTP files. The FTP option will be retained to accommodate users who don’t want to be online when they work. You may still export a listings or wants file and e-mail it as an attachment via your e-mail program if they choose.
Multi-select: Up to 100 listings or wants may be selected and edited/deleted at once. For example, if you realized you mis-typed an author's name on 5 listings, you could select them all and make the update once, and the edit would be applied to all 5 listings.
Improved Price Partner: Price Partner is built into HomeBase 3. Booksellers may select a sub-set of their listings and increase or decrease prices by a fixed amount or a percentage on only the selected listings. They can also update all selected listings to the same price.
ISBN LookUp: ISBN LookUp will now return more than one result if we have several matches to the ISBN in our database. The bookseller can choose the best match from the list. In addition, many more fields may be returned by ISBN LookUp.
Quantity: If you have more than one copy of a book, you can use the quantity field and we'll automatically decrement the quantity online when a book is sold; no more manually re-listing!
More Import Options: HomeBase 3.0 can import almost any type of file, so getting set up is easy.

I like the improved import/export features so far, but I am a little put off by the automatic updates to the website. For those of us who list on several websites, this can create a problem. I will be doing a full review of the software once I've had enough time to use all of its new features.

oldbookman-793841.jpg (JPEG Image, 640x409 pixels)

2008-08-26T11:55:00.001-04:00

oldbookman-793841.jpg (JPEG Image, 640x409 pixels)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

SPALDING'S ATHLETIC LIBRARY BASEBALL GUIDE 1911

2008-06-07T10:10:00.003-04:00

This antique book has a yellow soft cover with black spine lettering and a color cover illustration. Book is edgeworn, with soil; cover has protective plastic library-style covering to prevent further wear. Inner pages are browned, with some edgewear and bent corners. This classic baseball reference is illustrated with photos and includes official rules, standings, rosters and news of each Major League team. 405 pages, plus numerous advertisements; approx. 4"x7". Bookseller Inventory # P8025

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: American Sports Publishing Co., New York
Publication Date: 1911
Binding: Soft Cover
Illustrator: Illustrated
Book Condition: Good

Regular Price: $299.00 Today's Special: US$ 258.75

(Button takes you to our Abebooks listing)

I hate to keep posting about college textbooks...

2008-06-07T10:01:00.003-04:00

...but this is what happens in the current system:

3 arrested in college book-selling scam

Police said they would either shoplift the books or write bad checks and then return the books to other stores for a cash refund....

...The total loss incurred by the three bookstores and the bank was $15,823.76.

I looked around for stats on textbook shoplifting, but couldn't find any meaningful numbers. I imagine, with the cost of books, that there is a lot of loss that bookstores have to pick up due to poor students swiping books.

Another irritating textbook buyback story

2008-05-13T22:53:00.003-04:00

I don't want to throw around the word epidemic, but something has to be done soon.

From thecolonialist.com:

I decided to sell to the cart outside of Kogan on H St. I buy coffee from the guy twice a week and he always seemed to be a fair man. I gave him five books to scan, and he did so with out speaking a word. After a few moments he said, “five dollars.”

Now, I’ve been screwed on books before, but one dollar a book seemed a little irrational. I told him that I was going to take the books over to the bookstore, but I’m confident he had lower prices, so I’d be back. The following is a transcript of our actual conversation:

Coffee Guy: If you come back, I’ll only give you fifty cents for each of these books. $2.50 then, instead of $5.
Travis: What? Why would you do that?
Coffee Guy: Because I control the prices.

That pretty much sums it up. College kids - buy all your books online, then sell them online when you're done. Professors - don't require the latest edition of a textbook when the last edition has all the same information. Take away their control. Help stop the epidemic.

Keep an eye out for these -

2008-05-08T12:28:00.002-04:00

The top 10 out-of-print books. By top 10, I assume they mean most wanted.

Once a Runner (1978) by John L. Parker, Jr.
The cult classic distance running novel; the long-awaited sequel, Again to Carthage, was released in November
Football Scouting Methods (1962) by Steve Belichick
Legendary college football scout’s playbook, used by coaches and players to develop winning game plans
Sex (1992) by Madonna
The pop icon’s controversial book of erotic photos
Promise Me Tomorrow (1984) by Nora Roberts
An early novel that the bestselling romance novelist refuses to reprint, describing it as “mediocre”
The Lion’s Paw (1946) by Robb White
A children’s adventure story about two orphans who travel around Florida in a boat
The Principles of Knitting (1988) by June Hemmons Hiatt
An indispensable resource on hand knitting
Raven: The Untold Story of the Reverend Jim Jones and His People (1982) by Tim Reiterman
Chronicles the inner workings which allowed the Peoples Temple to flourish
Aran Knitting (1997) by Alice Starmore
History and how-to about the Irish knitting technique
One Way Up (1964) by John F. Straubel
The story of of helicopters and vertically rising aircraft
Dear and Glorious Physician (1959) by Taylor Caldwell
A novel based on the life of Saint Luke

From bookfinder.com journal

This month's special:

2008-05-06T10:42:00.003-04:00

"THE ART OF COOKERY MADE PLAIN AND EASY" by Mrs. Glasse

Published by T. Longman, B. Law, J. Johnson, et. Al., 1796.

This antique hardcover cookbook is bound in full leather, trimmed in gilt, with patterned edges. No cover or spine letters. Half-title page notes a price of six shillings bound; title page notes that the book "far excels any thing of the kind yet published ... in which are included one hundred and fifty new and useful receipts, not inserted in any former edition." Also included are "the order of a Bill of Fare for each Month; the Dishes arranged on the Table in the most fashionable Style." Some cover wear; inner pages browned, but clean, with very little foxing. A great example of one of the first widely-available cookbooks. 418 pages; approx. 5"x8".

Price: ~~$599.00 US~~ Now only $529.00

-Buy it-

Abebooks draws ire for charging comission on shipping

2008-05-04T08:02:00.002-04:00

From PW

The decision by AbeBooks to place an 8% charge on seller shipping expenses has caused outrage among many of the online retailer’s booksellers, who called the move shortsighted and one that discriminates against international booksellers. Hannes Blum, Abe CEO, said that in order to cover rising costs and compete in a marketplace that includes Amazon and Alibris, Abe needed to find a way to boost revenue. The benefit of instituting a charge on shipping fees is that it has the dual affect of raising revenue while discouraging gouging on shipping costs by booksellers who sell books for (literally) pennies and make their profit on shipping charges.

This is a BIG deal. Eight percent is no small chunk of change; we routinely eat up to $20 on shipping as it is, to add another 8% is going to kill a lot of smaller dealers.

Out of shelf space?

2008-04-18T13:51:00.002-04:00

From Curbly.com, but I've seen it around in other places.

Pictures:

Book buyers are happy!

2008-04-16T13:00:00.002-04:00

From Seattle PI

Abebooks UK lead the field with a rating of "89% for overall satisfaction and were praised for how easy it was to find products on their site."

That seems pretty high to me. We do a lot of ordering for customers, and one out of every three orders arrive quickly and without hassle. More often than not, books are "out of stock," or we receive a book that is totally different from what we ordered. This happens a lot using Amazon, as they are still working out the kinks of their ISBN/ASIN title matching system. Usually it is an issue with large print / audio book / book club edition substitutes. Overall, it is good to see these numbers. Happy customers come back.

Chrislands/Abebooks merger

2008-04-12T12:19:00.002-04:00

From Auctionbytes.com

Online bookselling site Abebooks.com has acquired Chrislands, a business that builds, hosts and maintains online bookstores, the fourth acquisition in four years.

This had been rumored for a while, but has finally gone through. Abebooks maintains that the pricing and services of Chrislands will not change, but time will tell. Chrislands offered many smaller bookstores a gateway to the web with their easy hosting setup and database management. Chrislands was easy, but simple, and their services were limited. Perhaps Abebooks will allow them to offer more robust packages.

Bauman Books heads to the Strip

2008-03-13T11:08:00.003-04:00

From SeattlePI

If you've ever been in a Bauman Books store, you know they mean business. I'm not sure if I'm happy or a little freaked out by this. I just can't imagine a high roller from Texas winning big at the craps table and running over to Bauman's and blowing ten grand on modern firsts.

Special of the Day

2008-03-07T10:42:00.004-05:00

Once in a while, I will throw up a listing of one of our books. I will try and pick titles you won't see in your average corner bookstore or on eBay. Today, we have an antiquarian collection of religious music.

MUSICAL MONITOR; OR, NEW-YORK COLLECTION OF DEVOTIONAL CHURCH MUSIC

by Ephraim Reed

This antique hardcover book is bound in a brown double leather cover with gilt lettering on a green leather spine label. Cover has some wear, scuffing, but is well-maintained and supple. Inside, pages have some foxing and browning, but text is legible. Published in 1822 by the A.P. Searing and Co. of Ithaca, NY. Includes music notation. 215 pages; approx. 5"x8". This is the revised 2nd edition.

$143.75 US

Buy it!

Mention this blog entry, and you can have it for $125.00 postage paid. First come, first served as there is only one in our inventory.

Bookstore discount

2008-03-02T15:40:00.001-05:00

Trying to get the word out - mention this blog at our store and receive 10% off any book in the store. This offer will be valid until April 1st.

Pirates, yar

2008-03-01T13:16:00.001-05:00

Pirated copies of Benazir’s new book selling like hot cakes

Always a problem with movies and music, it's not often you hear about books (unless it is Harry Potter).

Unusual bookshelves

2008-02-27T10:31:00.002-05:00

A lighter post today, check out these bookshelves:

http://freshome.com/2008/02/25/30-of-the-most-creative-bookshelves-designs/

Of course, most of them are impractical and inefficient, but the designs are nice to look at.