Future of the Book

Indy Booksellers Ask Feds to Investigate Amazon/WalMart Price War

The American Booksellers Association (ABA), of which we are a member, has asked the Department of Justice to examine the below-cost sale of bestsellers by Amazon and WalMart. The full letter is here.

New Blog

This blog will focus on the future of the book and bookselling. It incorporates previous posts from my Fine Books Blog, although it doesn't have any official connection to the current Fine Books & Collections.

Botanical Atrocities

So once again, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is teetering on the brink and has turned to selling off rare books to make ends meet (or more accurately, pay their **creditors** 30 cents on the dollar).

On December 11, at Sotheby's, at least six rare botanicals will be going on the block. This deaccessioning has been done quietly, but these six lots have Mass Hort bookplates. Nicholas Basbanes' article on a previous gutting of the MHS library (still touted on its website as "renowned for its collection of books related to early agriculture, horticulture, and landscape design.") can be read here.

**Thanks, Wystan**

A Cloud of Caution

The bookseller Steven Schuyler reports (in English) on the Boston book fairs for a German book magazine.

Tech Mogul Goes for Books

The Harvard Book Store, a Cambridge institution since 1932, has been acquired by an Internet pioneer. You may remember that a few years ago a group of technology executives took over Kepler's, near the Stanford campus. It's funny how the people who invented the machines that may destroy the book seem to like books so much more than the end-users of their products.

Guilty As Charged

A reader comments:

Maybe I am wrong ... but you and your magazine seem continuously fascinated with the works of artists that are cutting up books and 'creating' art (I use the term loosly).  And in sharing your interest with us again and again. Strange that a bookseller is thusly inflicted.

I can't argue with that. So be prepared to be disgusted by this link (sent by another reader), which offers a compendium of book detroyers.

As for it being strange that a bookseller is "thusly inflicted," it may come as a surprise to many to learn that as a group, the sellers of used books are the greatest bibioclasts in history. We collectively recycle and throw away millions of books each year - mostly because their previous owners don't have the heart to do it.

[Photo credit: Cara Barer, currently showing at Wessel & Lieberman in Seattle - I saw the show last weekend, and if you are in the area, it's worth stopping in.]

Hearts and Minds

A post on the Foreword Magazine blog, in which I pontificate again about the need to promote book collecting.

Econ 101?

I asked one of the owners of Booklegger, the shop down the block from mine, what--based on her many years' of experience--she thought the current economic mess would mean for our businesses. She replied that the woman who started Booklegger 25 years ago always said that in bad times two types of businesses always do well: Used bookstores and ice cream shops. If you can't afford dinner and a movie, a good novel and a chocolate sundae will do the trick.

I hope she's right.

Image from Flickr.

Compact Shelving

Why buy books when you can draw them?

Tip: Bad Banana Blog. Drawing by Charlie Kratzer.

We Were Robbed

While neglecting my own blog recently, I have signed on as a guess blogger at Foreword Magazine. I wrote about a recent theft at my bookstore, and the lesson I'm taking from it. Philobiblos isn't impressed.