My Five Fleeting Minutes of Fame

There  is so much to be done to get ready for the book fair I’ve tried to stay off the computer and concentrate on book selection and pricing. Eric is in Kalamazoo this weekend at a show, so I wanted  to be ready with my books when he returns with the wooden boxes we use for both transport and display, as I plan to start filling them next week. Though he and I do have an aesthetic difference of opinion about the dark green color he painted them, their design is ingenious. Each box is the same size so they neatly stack to build bookcases. But the best part is when the fair ends all we need to do is snap their sliding lids in place, load them on the truck, and we’re outta there!

Of course the Book Fair Effect continues to bedevil me. Just today a two volume set of The Journals of A. H. Maslow, the famous psychiatrist, sold on my secret site. When the buyer called to order them I was stunned to hear what he wanted, as I bought and listed them  them way back last November in Dayton and considered them safe. But the Book Fair Effect is an equal opportunity phenomenon. It doesn’t matter when you got them – it only cares about how much you value them. If you like them a lot, which I do these, the odds are probably fifty-fifty they won’t make it to the fair.

But there WAS one little ripple of excitement yesterday about the fair to report. My friend Judy Totts, who is an incredible writer, wrote an article about me as an exhibitor at this year’s fair which was published in the Medina Gazette yesterday replete with a little box with all the details about the fair – location, time, etc.  I took a picture of the whole thing , as you can see above, but I don’t suppose you can make it bigger to read it -- unless you know something I don’t, which is entirely possible.  I have been very disappointed in the response to the press releases I sent to local papers though. NOBS (Northern Ohio Bibliophilic  Society) which sponsors the fair, is a non-profit, but  the papers, even small ones,  still want the dealer being featured to purchase an ad in return for the coverage. I guess you can’t blame them in some regards, as newspapers are wobbling on a marble these days trying to maintain a foothold,  but the Medina Gazette required nothing of us for which we are grateful.

As for my fifteen minutes of fame, it was actually much shorter-lived than that, though I did get a phone call from a very sweet old lady who wanted to know if I wanted to buy her books. She started with what she considered her best – a 1950 Webster’s dictionary. But after we talked a bit she did have some better things (none great) which Eric could use at the store or we could take to the mall, so I told her I’d send him over to have a look as soon as he gets back. If her set of Journeys Though Book Land is in as good condition as she says it is, I could use it for the mall. And Eric could use her Gene Stratton Porter books, unless she has Moths of the Limberlost, in which case that baby’s mine!

Speaking of acquisition, last year at Kalamazoo Eric bought  me a huge box of books on guns and swords, almost all of which have departed my company. He swears he will try to do the same this year, but of course he can never be sure he’ll find anything good. I’m especially hopeful though, as we missed two book sales this week due to two employees out sick and the store understaffed. Neither sale is all that thrilling, but with our never-ending acquisition problem we need to be everywhere. One was the tiny sale where we got all the nautical books a couple weeks ago and the other the rural one we go to because we like the volunteers, there’s no scanning, and every once in a blue moon something amazing appears. I'll never forget the time I got the entire seven volume set of William Vollmann’s magnum opus on violence, Rising Up and  Rising Down, published by McSweeney’s. I was so stunned to see it in such an unlikely setting I almost froze in place. I remember wordlessly pointing at it and Eric saying, “What? You want this set?"


Do babies want milk? Do politicians want votes? Of course I want that set!

I just hope there wasn’t another one there last night.