Notes From The Frozen Tundra

I was off yesterday to a book sale and it feels like I just got back from Siberia. The sale boasted 60,000 books, which it  probably really did have, but the landscape there was as barren as the frozen tundra. How it is even possible to amass that many books and not have at least a small percentage of great titles? Wouldn't the Law of Averages say that this is statistically impossible? One would think so, but one would be very, very wrong in this instance. At first I thought it was me having one of those out of body experiences where you can't see, can't focus, can't choose. If you're a seller you know exactly the state of consciousness of which I speak. But no, this was not it. There was simply nothing there worth focusing ON. About halfway through the sale I stood beside my friend and fellow seller Paul clutching my three -- yes, count 'em three -- books and saw that he had maybe six. Then I met up with a seller who used to be a rare book librarian at a major university. His take? ONE.

I was about ready to give up when I remembered the game Kristian Strom wrote about in his blog where you go back through everything at the end and challenge a friend  to see who can find one good thing that everyone missed. So I figure I've been standing outside freezing for three hours (well, I did go to IHOP for coffee and I did read a couple chapters of my novel (The Cookbook Collector) in the car, but I still did stand a long time and I WAS freezing and that doesn't even count the fact that it wasn't even light out when we pulled into the parking lot. So I played the game with myself for lack of anyone with whom to play. Kristian, I wish I could tell you that I won. But I did not. I failed miserably. In fact, the only thing I accomplished was finding a copy of Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and moving it from fiction to religion where it belonged.


So I gave up in frustration and went to the check-out where Eric stood waiting for me with maybe eight or ten books for the store. Normally I would use the time in line to fill in my check, but this was not a check-worthy event. A twenty dollar bill did the trick with $3 change! So instead  I looked around at the piles and mounds and heaps of things being carted away by the other 200 sellers and  did a double take. Here are some examples -- a full set of encyclopedias circa 1960's, a boatload of beat-up romance novels, ex-library copies of very common novels,  and lots of everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about (fill in the blank) books. We couldn't believe it, but I swear on a teetering stack of Danielle Steeles that this is exactly what we observed. The big question is, how in the world do you stay in business selling THAT? I don't know and I really don't have the energy or interest to contemplate it. Just consider me a puzzled bystander fighting the winds of change to bring you the latest news from the Ohio tundra.

On a different note I am very excited to have sold my beloved almost-an-antique ( 98 years old) Mary Francis Sewing Book. In case you've forgotten, this is the children's book that had me wanting to whirl, twirl and toss confetti all over the library last week. It sold on its first day out, dealer direct for three figures to a woman who phoned in her order. Her first words to me were, "I love this book and I hope you still have it because I promise you I will love it for the rest of my life." I am dead serious. She said this. Sales are not that great right now and acquisition is even worse. But I am a happy bookseller today because Mary Frances found a very good home. AND I just reaquainted myself with my winter gloves and, if I do say so, that fake lepoard  fur is tres cute!