iscriptorium

Hot on the heels of the Book Thief is the Book Bandit! This time for real. Like something out of a Pink Panther film, in America there is a thief prowling rare book collections at the countries leading libraries.

All booksellers, I suppose are drawn to books about books and book-selling and I am no different. When I noticed, “The Book Thief” in my local British Heart Foundation. charity shop I was drawn to it because of the title. I had not heard of the author Markus Zusak. It is one of the best books I have ever read. Very easy to read, the story is not ground-breaking but it is told with such grace and the warmth of the lead characters brings you back again and again. There is an interview with Zusak in the Guardian.

The Hobbit was the first book I remember reading on my own. I started to read it, and then did nothing else for 2 days. I am sure if it had been Harry Potter or Narnia or Peter Pan, the effect would have been the same but there is a reason these books have such resonance. Now if I only knew what that was.

The modern retail experience is diverse. Imagination is all that is required. Or money. If one has a pound, one can spend it. If one has a million pounds, so much the better. But bypassing trends, flavour of the month. Forgetting personal experience and focusing on the business end of buying. What is the best way to buy a book?

If it is a new book, the lowest price is the deciding factor, normally that would mean buying on-line, probably from Amazon.

What of rare books? One cannot walk down to Tesco or even Waterstones and ask if they have a copy of De Revolutionibus. It is not certain, upon walking into Maggs or Quaritch that they would bear it, although one would have more of a chance.

It is easy to search all the major bookseller services at Addall and find the lowest price.

Antithesis - Why would anyone do it any other way?

Well, the great thing about bookshops is the unknown, the thrill of the chase. I would much rather go to browse in a good bookshop than a good bookseller website. I like the social aspect of visiting a bookshop, discussing with the staff the author, other books in the category etcetera. Some collectors will only buy a book after having physically held it, flicked through the pages, inhaled it’s history and that cannot be achieved by html.

But then what one would much rather do and what one ends up doing, are often, very different things.