A Very Fine Day and A Chair

Yesterday was one of those summer days you wish you could stick in the freezer and defrost in January. I got up before the fog had lifted, not only from the lake, but the street too, had some coffee and a bagel, and coaxed Eric out of the house by 6:30 for an estate sale. “They” always blame women for being late, but I’m here to tell you that women do not corner that particular market. If it were up to me I’d have been gone a half hour earlier. As it was we were numbers six and seven in line which was fine. The usual crowd milled about the front of the house which sat on a lovely winding country lane in the city replete with two lakes and enough mosquitoes to treat everyone to dengue fever. One guy had a box of Bounce fabric softener sheets which he swore would keep the critters at bay, so he passed them out and all the sale-goers ended up smelling like laundry!

My friend Darwin was there and I met a nice lady from Richfield who was a friend of his, so the time passed pleasantly until we got in to the see the “1000 books.” Whether or not there really were that many is up for grabs, but there were certainly a lot. The vast majority resided in the garage which, as it turned out, was where they belonged. We did find one nice modern reprint of an Ohio county history and atlas out there, so that was a nice score, but otherwise ….

Inside, prices soared like eagles for stuff you had to see to believe. I bought one nice two volume art set in a slipcase which was overpriced at $25 but should nonetheless fetch a decent price on my secret site, three books for the antiques mall, and a three volume religious set and a New York history and genealogy for online. We gathered up our meager items and began wending our way through the crowd to the check-out when Eric spotted a CHAIR – solid maple, Windsor-style made by Nichols and Stone. It’s smaller than the one we just sold and not nearly so pleasing in its configuration, but not bad and a better size for the booth. SOLD! (Hear that, Cheryl?)

The highlight of the sale though was a chance to see something rare and wonderful. In this modest, cramped ranch house filed with wall-to-wall kitsch resided the Doves English Bible published sequentially by subscription from 1903-1905 and considered a masterpiece for its fine typography. It’s a five volume set originally issued in limp vellum, but residing in Akron in hard cover, volume I of which was published a year after the vellum. Price -- $2200. The estate sale woman sized me up as the bookiest person in the place and gave me the hard sell, including a print-out from ABE by a seller who’d priced his set at $20,000. Of course she felt that piece of paper was the final word on the subject , but I questioned it to myself then and I question it now. I did some research, which proved to be fun, and found auction comparables for the vellum. One vellum set sold at Christies for slightly over $3000 American and another vellum set was estimated at $4-6,000 by Swann in pre-recession 2005 and came with each volume nestled in its own felt-lined box stamped in gold. Sadly, the realized price didn’t even reach the lowest estimate. Still, what a memorable treat to see and handle these fine volumes.

You’d think anything that followed that would be like a baloney sandwich after crème brulee, but the day just kept on getting better. Eric took the whole thing off, so we got to play with the regular people who’ve enjoyed enough Saturday leisure to take it for granted. We bought pleated shades for my office windows and a doorknob for the office door, had lunch at Panera (spicy Thai salad with chicken and endame) –and then headed to downtown Akron for an exhibit of altered books at the Akron Art Space. Though I was disappointed at how small the exhibit was, it got me so cranked up all I can think of is playing with my papers again. The best works were a fold-out book protesting the war in Iraq, and a truly stunning indictment of incest all tarted up in black lace. Another one I liked was this huge expanse of shredded book pages and polyurethane that spilled down from the wall to the floor like a monochromatic shag carpet. I know – there’s something big here we’re not talking about, but we will another day. Right now I just want to let those images tumble around in my head like Chinese gymnasts.

On the way home we stopped at the antiques mall and installed the chair. My favorite clerk at the check-out desk showed me one of my tickets indicating that I’d sold a set of deluxe auction catalogs for $68.

“I love the way you always do this when I come in,” I tell her.

“It’s because you’re so nice and I want you to do well,” she says.

Truly, truly a day for preservation -- maybe in amber.

Helping, HELP!!!!, and The Help

The next time I take a notion to go to the Hartville Flea Market at 6:30 a.m. on a Monday morning please -- somebody, anybody -- remind me how much I hate it. We went once last year and though the only book I bought was a hardcover copy of my favorite cookbook, I did get a wonderful old photograph and a card table that looks like a painting and stands on its little easel-like legs charmingly folded against the wall in my dining room. It wasn’t books I was after anyway – I know a lost cause when I see one – but I thought maybe I could get display furniture for the antiques mall to replace the sold stuff, or at least a chair for people to sit. But no such luck. I’ve come to the conclusion that Hartville is the same as the dreaded Litchfield only with nicer walkways.

I’d hoped to post yesterday, but it was a day of phone calls from long-lost people, including a guy we didn’t buy books from due to their terminal commoness. I casually mentioned that he could try selling them online and – guess what – I created a brand new shiny bookseller to add to the critical mass. From now on I am NEVER, however casually, going to suggest any such thing. Turns out he has a new twist on the same-old/same-old. Instead of going to library sales three hours early and jockeying with the Cleveland area crazies for the honor of plastering himself to the door before the opening bell this guy goes to library sales only on bag day where he can fit 25 books in a grocery bag at twelve cents each. As he spoke I thought of my friend who has spent an entire lifetime in this business and now struggles due to the influx of sellers who are not serious about books and only want a down-and-dirty second income with the least expenditure of time and capital. I will spare you a rant, but it’s disturbing to think I contributed to this.

I didn’t expect to be able to post today because my friend Mary Lynn was supposed to be here from Dayton for a nine o’clock breakfast which usually stretches to noon. I talked to her Monday night and the gig was on, but here it is almost ten-thirty and I haven’t heard a peep. I tried to call her cell phone, but ended up having to leave a message. Of all my friends she’s the only one as crazed about time as I am. If the time is set for 9 a.m. and she walks in at 9:02 she will apologize profusely for her lateness. So yeah, I’m a little worried.

I just thought of something. Here I am blogging away about selling books, but rarely do I talk about reading them which of course I do and have done my entire life. I am currently reading, though I know I’m late to the party since the movie’s due out soon, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. If you have not done so, get thee to a bookstore (oh, that's right, we don’t have many of those  anymore) and buy a copy. Well, get online and buy one then. By now the penny sellers should be paying YOU for the order.

As a former writer I am stunned by Sackett’s audaciousness. Here’s this pretty, young, blond Caucasian author writing in the voice of a middle-aged African American maid working in the pre-Civil Rights South, an act which should send alarm bells reverberating from sea to shining sea.. She did grow up in a privileged southern home which employed “help”, but even so, it’s a leap to try assuming such a voice. You either get it right or you fall into the danger zone of offensiveness. Stockett, I’m happy to report,  is standing tall – the woman totally NAILED it. The task isn’t just about capturing speech patterns, idioms and inflections –any writer with a good ear for dialogue could do that –its about living in the skin of your character and understanding the world as she does. And not in a surface way either, but deeply and truly. It’s a monumental task – and not for the faint of heart – which is why I mention this dazzling ahivement.

Well, it’s now almost eleven and still no Mary Lynn. I called her cell phone a second time and, again, it rang and rang, so I left another message. Wait – hang on! Phone!

Thank God, it was Mary Lynn. It seems she forgot to mention one small detail – she’s coming NEXT week. Even her son the doctor whose Cleveland apartment she stays at when she's here thought it was today. So I’m not going crazy and mixing up dates, she’s fine, and I can now get to work sprucing up eleven books for the antiques mall. Eric bought them over the counter at the store yesterday – all from the early 1900’s, all fairly common, but saleable in the booth and all in pretty darn good condition. When I get done with them they’ll be things of beauty.

But before I get to that there’s blueberry muffins, fruit, and coffee calling my name. I’ve been up since five. I think it’s time for breakfast.

Rambling in the Rain

I should be standing  in a line in Akron for an estate sale as we speak, but woke up to both pouring rain and the thing I try never to mention -- fibromylagia -- back with a vengeance. Eric said he knew when he was the first one up that I'd be a creaky mess, so he even made my coffee before he woke me. To be fair, he didn't exactly use the words "creaky mess", but he knew we weren't going. He could of course have gone alone, but the thought of that is as welcome to him as a coiled snake on the front porch. Why this is I don't know, but there you have it. I actually did consider dragging myself out the door and even looked up the sale online, but the pictures proved so underwhelming I practically fell asleep looking at them. Show me shelves of books with shiny, brightly colored dustjackets and unless I'm looking for something to read I'll happily remain in my pjs. I'm still in them actually and may well remain so, but I'm also determined to work awhile today no matter what. ABE graced me with enough high end orders yesterday after a week of miserable sales to inspire some serious listing.  Besides, we can go tomorrow even though any good books -- if there ever were any, which is highly doubtful -- will be gone. But with any luck I might snag a piece of furniture at a pittance price.

I have to tell you -- this furniture phenomenon has me quite baffled. Every time I buy a piece for the booth, I sell it. I'm beginning to think I might have a flair for it, though it's probably too soon to call it anything  more than a trend. So far though I sold the French table, the barrister bookcase, the Windsor chair and now a side table with a drawer. Yesterday's sale of the latter, while great,  impels me  to get to the mall tomorrow,  however, as I know from experience that everything that had been displayed on it will have been dumped willy-nilly about the place, adding to everything else that gets strewn around in the natural order of things. Be that as it may,  it ain't happening today though.

As you know, I've harbored a vocal fear that  I'll somehow morph into an antiques dealer, but I think maybe I'm over it. What I'm doing is just buying stuff that ENHANCES the books, so if it sells, great, and if it doesn't then the booth still looks nice and I have some eye-catching display space for special items. Thanks to that little side table,  I sold my signed  first edition of  Carl Sandburg's novel Remembrance Rock a couple weeks ago. I'd  had it online about a year, took it to the Akron antiquarian show in 2010, and brought it to the mall in March. At first it was just shelved with the fiction, but when I got the table I showcased it on a little stand on top and -- bingo! -- it found itself a home. So I think I'm on the prowl tomorrow for a chair and some sort of small table or chest for display. I doubt I'm  going to cart either one home though, as none of the weekend's sales look great and they're scattered around over too many miles to make it worth chasing them all down.

Estate sales on the whole have not been wonderful around here all summer and neither have auctions. I went to those two auctions that were okay early on, but since then there's been a paucity of books. A guy called earlier in the week wanting to sell me 24 Hardy Boys books from the 30's, the thought of which makes my teeth hurt. I was also offered a collection of Reader's Digest condensed books enhanced by many oversized Reader's Digest  "special" books, and several large cartons of older Harlequin romances. Mercifully, it was all via phone, so I didn't have to find a tactful way to say no in person. Rejecting books people love makes me feel like the grinch who stole Christmas. I always tell them it's the market, not the enjoyment quality of the books,  and that I, too, have beloved favorites that wouldn't fetch enough to buy a can of Pledge to keep the mall booth clean. This is actually true, as as I have a whole shelf of BOMC biographies of the American ex-patriates in France -- Scott, Zelda, Ernest, Gertrude, Alice, Martha Gelhorn, Gerald and Sara Murphy, et al. which remind me not only of past reading pleasure, but also the early years of  marriage prior to the arrival of the dear little wild things!

Am I rambling? Yes, I think I am. So on that note I am going to snap a preview of the Magical Makeover -- just the desk and the fabulous purple chair. I probably should wait until I can do the grand  reveal, but I think maybe after all this verbage I owe you a little something more.  I know it's not much, but work with me here!

P.S. New Picture with rug

Of Books and Nooks

I had hoped to post yesterday, but couldn't for a wonderful reason. Eric took the day off and progressed significantly on the Magical Makeover. As I write this I am sitting at the new black desk perched on the fabulous purple chair like the Queen of Everything -- which is not to say that the transformation is complete. The good news is he fairly easily removed the built-in desk, patched the wall, painted the wall, and assembled the desk. He even disconnected AND reconnected (that's the important part) the jumble of scary electronics which consists of  computer, monitor, speakers, printer, external hard drive, cable box, and some sort of back-up thing that sits on the floor and gathers dust. All that remains is to paint the built-in wall cabinets, lay the rug, buy two black frames for the cool art I bought on ebay and two pleated shades. Happy, happy! And I'm even happier yet because I successfully e-filed my Ohio sales tax forms this morning with a minimum of swearing.

But good as all that is, it's not what I want to talk about today. My mind has been on e-readers ever since Sunday when I dropped by the antiques mall with a box of books and encountered a  nice  forty-something  woman browsing in my booth. She asked if I had Eleanor Roosevelt's etiquette book which I did not -- either there, here, or at the store, though I should have it somwhere considering the tremendous number of books we bought at auction last winter owned by a university librarian who was a HUGE Roosevelt fan. Anyway, I told her I didn't have it and we moved on to a variety of other book-related topics.

"I probably shouldn't admit this," she said. "But I bought an e-reader."

My gaze fell to the old cookbook she was holding, picked up at another booth.

"Oh, it doesn't mean I won't buy books anymore. I just don't want to buy fiction and stuff that clutters up the house after you run out of shelves. Old books are totally different. I'll always buy them."

Immediately I remembered two other people saying the exact same thing to me -- one is my friend Cheryl and the other an Ohio customer who buys from my website. Both of them have the Kindle, but both still buy collectible books. The woman in my booth, however, bought a color Nook and her husband bought the Kobo which of course is affiliated with the late, great Border's, but will still be viable even when Border's reaches it's last chapter (probably by the end of the week),  as Kobe does maintain its own website from which ebooks can be purchased. But here's the interesting thing -- this woman  has no intention of buying ANY e-books. Her sole motivation was to save on library fines by downloading ebooks from the library. In six months she hasn't spent the first dime on new books. I called the Medina library to get the local skinny on the topic and learned that Medina patrons are among the biggest users of e-readers in the Cleve-net system.  The Medina library is part of a larger Cleveland consortium which pooled its money to buy more e-book licenses than it could have otherwise. At first thought it would seem that they would only need a single copy of each title and from that could zap it out to however many people wanted it. But such is not the case. E-books are bought just like any other book -- copy by copy. If they have five copies and six people want it the last one goes on the waiting list. Patrons get three weeks to read the book and then -- poof!-- all gone!

Interestingly enough, almost all e-reader brands are compatible with the books at the library -- except for Amazon's Kindle. Why am I not surprised? Coming from the company that's so greedy it considers itself above paying sales tax in areas where it maintains a warehouse (physical presence), it's to be expected. In fact, amazon is dumping all its affiliates in other states, also to avoid sales tax. You gotta love the fact that Barnes & Noble is not only welcoming these former affiliates, but assuring them they THEY will collect and pay the tax and all the affiliates have to do is jump on board.

Amazon has, however, announced this week that a new Kindle will be debuting shortly which will allow college students to rent downloadable textbooks, a phenomenon likely to take a big bite out of online sales for used textbook dealers. Last fall Auctionbytes conducted a survey of used book sellers which indicated that only 22 per cent thought e-readers had cut into their bottom line. I'd bet the fabulous  purple chair that number has risen greatly because  since then amazon posted earnings which showed that e-books outsold both hard and soft cover books combined on their site. The only saving grace is the fact that older titles are not as readily available in the e-book format and the cost of  new books in e-book format rivals that of paperbacks minus the shipping cost. Not long ago I noticed that a favorite author's new book had gotten uncharacteristically bad reviews on Barnes and Noble. Turns out, it wasn't her book that had readers' bookmarks in a knot, but the cost of the downloadable book at $12. Somehow they had gotten the idea that it was supposed to be $8.95 when they pre-ordered only to be charged at a higher price when it arrived.

The bottom line is, like it or not, this technology is not only here to stay, but is bounding forward like a cheetah on speed. What it means for booksellers remains to be seen, but, once again, I don't find myself in a state of panic even at the height of a sluggish summer. As you might recall, I had grave misgivings about e-readers, but right now am actually flirting with  the notion of buying a Kobo for library downloads to reduce my constant fines. At this point I'm only batting my eyelashes at it, but I do think the day might come when I cozy up to the idea.

As much as I can't believe I'm saying it --  I do believe that the Nook can lie down peacefully with the book.

Pollyanna In the Headlights

In the evening of the day I wrote the last post about pricing I went to that funky little rural library book sale I’ve mentioned a couple times in the past. Though I bought exactly five books – yes, count ‘em, FIVE – that isn’t really what this post is about. I’m more focused this morning on several changes I saw which could be notable. The first was a markedly shorter line that didn’t grow much until the last fifteen minutes and even then proved lackluster. No, forget lackluster. Let's be honest -- it was  DISMAL. Many of the dealers from that area had already quit coming a couple years ago when they banned scanners, so their absence isn’t the issue here. What’s disturbing was the lack of library patrons, especially given the fact that this library believes in rock-bottom pricing. In the old days, even minus all the Columbus dealers, the number of library patrons and their kids could have formed an impressive and enthusiastic Conga line. This time you  couldn't have scared up a square dance.

The second disconcerting thing was the large signs everywhere warning that the sale is in jeopardy due to the lack of volunteers. Again, this has never been a problem in the past. Never. And we’ve been going to this sale since 1997. Every time someone checked out, the volunteer at the table warned that it might be the last sale and pleaded with people to save it by volunteering. The third shocker was the books themselves. Years ago you could haul some pretty fine things out of there, but in the past three years or so to get anything of consequence required eagle eyes and due diligence. But, that being said, the problem was not due to scarcity. On the contrary, books jammed the shelves, spilled out of boxes onto the floor and required two rooms to contain them. They still have the two rooms, but that’s about all that can be said about that. Trust me -- there was no spilling involved last Thursday.

In addition to us there appeared to be three dealers present. One was an experienced seller who has been around at least as long as we have and is a regular; another was a long time ebayer, again around as long as we have, but relatively new to this sale; and the third was a newcomer who, if he doesn’t already have a scanner might want to consider one and steer clear of sales which ban them. He bought – and I am not exaggerating – sixteen plastic tubs of cheap paperbacks, most of which were pocket-sized, and none of which have any real monetary value. All I can say is good luck with THAT. I didn’t talk to him, but I did talk to the other two and both seemed deflated – so much so that I could feel my own spirits plummeting to a hard landing before we even got inside. Both bemoaned the difficulty of finding desirable stock, but that’s not particularly new. What’s new is that both admitted to sharply decreasing sales, especially the ebayer whom I met the last time I was at this sale and haven’t seen since. He was definitely disillusioned back then, but compared to now he was downright chipper.

Ebay, it seems, has raised prices yet again and burdened sellers with even more inane rules and regulations. As he sees it, they are also pushing hard for free shipping and have designed their rating system in such a way that a seller who doesn’t offer it stands a high probability of getting zapped by the buyer no matter how little he or she charges. While it made me glad that I left ebay last summer, just hearing about it brought back a tidal wave of the tension and depression that triggered my abrupt withdrawal from “fee-bay” in the first place. It’s important to note here that the seller who shared all this with me is no dummy – he’s a book guy and a savvy one – but he’s also working a full-time job and then putting in four hours every night after work selling books to pay his kids’ tuition. He’s getting the job done, but just barely.

“It used to be so good I actually considered quitting my day job. Am I ever glad I didn’t. I’m working harder than ever before to make so much less money and the fees are killing me. I’m looking at $125 a month at ebay and that’s without selling or listing anything new and I'm talking about before the new changes. By the time the final value fees are added ….” His voice drifted off.

“I’m still making SOME money,” he said a moment later. “But it isn’t fun anymore. These days I dread going to sales.”

Before I could respond, the door opened and the sale began. As I perused the shelves I felt an overwhelming sadness for him, for my bookseller friend who is looking for a job in a bad economy, for all of us for whom technology gave in abundance and then took away accordingly. But now, a day and a half later, I already feel in myself a resurgence of the light, hope, and excitement I felt before I went to the sale. If you’ve been around for awhile you know full well that I’m as capable of doom and gloom as anybody. I whine, I moan, I fret, I wail, I gnash my teeth and rend my garments. I even do that thing that begins with a "p" that isn't preveracate, but sounds something like it. A reader once reminded me of  that word, but I STILL I don't remember it. What I do know  is this:

Nowhere ever were we guaranteed sameness. Life is all about change, so all we can do is strap on our ugly tennis shoes and get moving

Bemoaning the good old days is a waste of time. They’re over. Believe it.

Business as usual is a formula for failure. The old model can no longer carry the full freight indefinitely.

We each need to make a concrete plan for ourselves -- and be ready to change it.

The old adage about thinking outside the box has never been more crucial. Had anyone told me last year that I’d be the doing the stuff I’m doing now I would have scoffed. But I’m doing it with every fiber of my being and mostly having fun.

New endeavors generate excitement. A few of my ideas have already crashed and burned, but a couple others seem promising, at least for now. If they work out I will be able to do this in a much less stressful way. Goodbye Alibris. Goodbye Biblio …

Looking to a brighter future motivates. I, too, am working harder than ever for less, primarily because of escalating fees and the cost of inventory, shipping, and hardware.  But I still wake up excited – at least most of the time.

And, finally, it's  all about survival of the fittest. There is no way on God’s green earth that the current number of “booksellers” is sustainable. Some will survive, most won’t. Which group I will be in remains to be seen. But I know one thing – I won’t go down easily.

Pollyanna may be the deer in the headlights, but at least she's running.

Pondering Prices

I should have been here by now I know, but there’s this pesky thing called work that occasionally needs my undivided attention. So yesterday I hunkered down and began attacking the contents of the office closet. I whine continuously about how few books I have stockpiled when in fact the office closet is stuffed, and the guest room closet pictured above is not exactly empty. There are also books on the shelves in the garage (not too many though) and some in the basement requiring repair. And we won’t even DISCUSS paper. I think what happens is we tire of looking at the books we’ve had kicking around awhile and begin to mentally dismiss them. These days the outcome of such lassitude can go either way – you miss your moment, or they improve with age.

Here’s what I mean. When I came back from the Case Western sale in late May I researched prices on every book I kept to put online and outfitted each one with a slip of paper with their intended prices inside. Now, just six weeks later, I take them out to list only to find that in a few instances they’ve already gone dramatically south. But the opposite also proved true. A few which I priced low have shot skyward and, in at least two instances, artificially so. The fact of the matter is this – booksellers continue to multiply like bunnies, but come at this crazy endeavor with varying degrees of knowledge and appreciation for what they sell. The pulsing desire is to push the product, so it stands to reason that sometimes very good books get the short end of the stick while lesser ones soar like eagles. A perfect example is a gun book I’ve sold several times. When I looked it up in May it was offered as low as $25 even though my records indicate that I sold it three times at $35, the last time being in January. Reluctantly, I marked the slip with $25, but noted that if it had not risen by the time I was ready to list I would either have Eric take it to a show, or I would take it to the mall. Amazingly, this book now lists at $65 to $100!

Cause for rejoicing, yes? Mmmm… not really. Though it’s tempting to jump in at $65 and try to score I will not be doing it. First of all, it’s truly NOT a $65 book, as there have since been several written on this specific model that are much better. To act as though I have the definitive book on the subject when I most definitely do not makes me feel creepy and unprofessional. But for argument’s sake let’s say I set my scruples aside and jump in at a “low” $65. My window of opportunity is probably less than the time it takes to respond to an order. So now there I am in a couple weeks relegated to page two of the listings which is probably where I deserve to be. In the end, I’m pricing it at $35 even though it appears that I am doing the very thing I rail about – lowballing other sellers. But in this instance what appears to be undercutting really isn’t.

Not long ago I read in Americana Exchange about a long-time seller whose listings I run across on ABE continuously. Though he holds an inventory of more than a hundred thousand books he actually went through every last one and repriced them to conform to today’s averages. Earlier this year I attempted to do likewise, in hopes of streamlining my listings. I need to continue this project when time allows, but the difference between what he did and what I want to continue doing is huge. He “caught up” with current prices, which I guess is good, as it will more than likely trigger sales, at least in the short run. But the fact remains that the market is as fickle as a teenage boy. As I write this, at least a portion of his prices have already become obsolete. I can’t recall whether or not he installed that software which lowers prices incrementally, but I suspect he did. If so, then he can still compete. But I would also add that my long-time bookseller friend who is seeking a job did this too, only to find it less than sustainable over the long haul.

As for me, I want to go through the same laborious process, but just as I began it. My goal when I first undertook it, was, and still is, to clean out the “dead wood”. In some instances I WILL lower prices, but in others I will move the books offline and into one of our two physical locations. The remaining books (they’re the ones gasping for breath ) I will donate to the bookstore in town run by Project Learn, a literacy program. It’s interesting to note that my online inventory has dropped to an alarming 5000 items which seems impossible considering that we’ve been in business 14 years. But here’s the thing. When you look at what little I have now and consider that in the span of two years alone I bought the entire contents of a bookstore in Indiana and the two giant Elmer collections, it’s evident that my sell-through rate has been fairly astonishing.

In the end, my feelings about pricing boil down to this. I do not, and never have, considered books to be pork bellies, the market for which zooms all over the board at supersonic speed. My intention is to be fair to my customers, resist temptations to be opportunistic, and sell good books at fair prices. Consider for a moment the amount of money, time and effort is takes to acquire a decent inventory. Books cost more than ever before, as their popularity online has erroneously convinced all venues – library sales, estate sales, private sellers, auction houses etc. – that practically anything between two covers must be worth a fortune. Then there’s the lines at sales which snake through entire buildings, down sidewalks, and wrap around corners, which of course mean that our amount of wait time to get a reasonably early glimspse at the offerings has grown exponentially (three hours is the norm around here). Then after we buy the books we must schlep them, clean them, research them, list them, shelve them, wrap them, pay commissions on them, and ship them,  often for less than actual cost.

How, given all that, can we afford to sell our books at the whims of a capricious market that’s increasingly dominated by people who don’t even read? 

Reprise: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Okay, I did it. Got up at 5:30 Saturday morning, painted my face, did my hair and was out the door to the world’s cheesiest estate sale in an hour flat. It was held in a junky part of Akron, but it was a beautiful day and I don’t actually hold its location against it anyway because I once bought The Marshall Stillman Boxing Course from a falling-down house in Barberton. That is one truly rare item which taught me not to be a house snob. What was wrong with this house was that it was the size of a Cracker Jack box, only minus the prize inside. But the minute the door opened a gazillion people flew through and congregated in front of the “paper collection.”

Immediately the complaints rose as thick as the mist of Brigadoon.

“I wouldn’t mind that old Akron bike license, but no way am I paying THAT!”

“If you don’t want it I’ll take it. Oh -- I see what you mean!”

“Thirty dollars for THIS?”

And that wasn’t even me! I picked up a nice oversized booklet commemorating the 50th anniversary of Firestone Rubber with its original envelope, but it was priced right at retail. Finally I let the crowd have at it and went off to see the “Victorian children’s book collection.” This consisted of several ratty books printed on cheap paper and priced like the Crown Jewels. Also sharing the same lady-bug-sized room was the “toy collection” which had brought in a plethora of toy dealers (all male) whose conversation channeled what I’d already heard downstairs at the “paper collection”. Nonetheless, I dutifully crawled around on the floor, between the feet, and behind the boxes and boxes of newish evangelical Christian books, only to find one decent Ohio title – Cherry’s Ohio and the Western Reserve in excellent condition and nicely underpriced.

Somewhat cheered, I then headed back downstairs to find the paper collection deserted. Piece by piece I went through it but, again, everything I might have bought was grossly overpriced. I did find two Wadsworth High School commencement booklets from the 30’s (exceptionally nice) for $5 each, so I grabbed those and then ran headlong into a dilemma. Did I dare spend $20 for a 1940’s children’s book about the circus which opens up to form a big circus ring? The odds were good that by its very nature many of these didn’t survive.

But no.

Well, maybe.

No.

No.

Definitely no.

Oh, all riiiiiiight!

I snatched it up and had another look at the Firestone commemorative. I have a customer I could quote it to with a 75 per cent chance that he’d take it and I’d make a tiny—not TIDY, tiny -- profit. But in the end, I said no and meant it. The last thing I want to do is encourage these crazy pricers any more than I absolutely have to.

As it turned out, the cherry drop-front desk Eric dragged me over to see in the first place turned out to be a cheap knock-off, so even that was a bust. And to add to the pleasure, the dishwasher broke Saturday, sales online remained slow all weekend, and even the antiques mall emerged from its white-hot week like an overheated southern belle in need of a stiff mint julep.

About the only good thing I can report is that the Magical Makeover is right on track. Oh, and the dead dishwasher only cost $168 to fix.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Well, THIS is disappointing! Those of you who have been around since last summer when I revived this blog after two years of silence may recall my elation when my neighborhood held a nighttime garage sale that exploded into one giant street party. Medina’s Finest were screeching through bull horns about not blocking fire hydrants and writing tickets faster than they could pull them off the pad. So of course after that much fun and frivolity I was revved up like the engine of a Lamberghini for this year’s extravaganza. All day Wednesday I practically hung out the window of my office (the Magical Makeover remains in progress) watching as cars and trucks showed up hours in advance. But it didn’t take long to realize that there weren’t nearly as MANY cars and trucks even though the weather was so good it’s like we’d borrowed it for the day from Nantucket.

Six o’clock was game time, so Eric rolled in the driveway at a quarter ‘til and we were out on the street in ten minutes flat. It’s not that I expected to buy all that much. Last year I bought a basket, a huge bunch of ribbon for gift baskets and a vintage booklet about the Panama Canal and Eric bought a big kite to fly with Tyler and some other guy thing that I can’t remember. No, it wasn’t at all about buying stuff because I don’t even LIKE garage sales. What I like is the energy of this particular one. In case you didn’t pick up on it, I’m something of an excitement junkie. So imagine my let-down when we could actually stroll unimpeded down the street. If I’d wanted to stroll unimpeded down the street I’d have put on my ugly tennis shoes and taken a serious walk. No! This was supposed to be party-time. As it turned out, I bought a basket, one roll of ribbon and a white turkey platter to replace the one just like it that I broke last Fourth of July and Eric bought a blah rocking chair for the porch of the store. We were back in our kitchen making spaghetti for dinner in just under forty-five minutes, he having spent a whopping $20 to my $5.25.

So now I’m wishing for a good estate sale, but apparently that’s not happening either. The Akron paper shows three, two of which are not even in the ball park. One of them says books, but I’m getting weary of this particular company. Always they have books and always they’re “priced reasonably”, but what they mean to say is that they're actually junk which they have to price high because in the estate sale game you work with what you have. At any rate, my desire to slap make-up on my face at six o’clock this morning and wait for hours to inspect this high-priced junk waned considerably. So that leaves us with one more sale tomorrow.This company, too, goes wacko if they get an old book and from the sound of things they don’t have very many, so it will no doubt be Wal-mart quality at Tiffany prices. I vote for not going, but Eric wants to look at some non-book stuff for the store so I’ll probably colorize myself after all and go along for the ride. The deal is though that we have to go to The Nervous Dog for breakfast afterwards because I bought a groupon coupon for it, and then stop at the antiques mall so I can reload my shelves after a very satisfactory week there. Which, I might add is a  good thing, because once the holiday ended, buyers seemed to slouch off the internet like it bored them out of their skulls.

On a brighter note, Eric installed a new light fixture in the ceiling of my office and painted the new closet door. He is also – and this is huge – taking off the ENTIRE DAY tomorrow, so we can work on the office unimpeded for hours at a stretch. That is, of course, provided that I go to the estate sale. The immediate progress of the Magical Makeover it would seem hangs on the end of a mascara wand.

Chalk-Aholic!

Finally – the great driveway chalk mural HAPPENED! We had a blast, but I must say that it  didn’t turn out at all as expected for a variety of reasons. I had pictured everyone working on it en masse, but Tyler, our seven year old grandson, wanted it to be a project for him and me only, which as it turned out, was a very good thing. The two-year old dynamo required the undivided attention of the remaining three adults just to keep him from heading off to Akron!

The real downside though was the glow-in-the-dark chalk. I expected a much better product from Crayola, so was very disappointed on every level. Not only do you have to mix this stuff up (it’s rather lethal looking), but it also has the glow life of a lightening bug which means you have to make it right before you want to use it while still allowing 25 minutes set-up time. It comes with shallow plastic trays in ridiculous designs for drawing and doesn’t even provide enough gunk to fill them to the top. For $10 we wound up with five pieces of crumbly chalk (it promised eight) that disappeared almost immediately. Had I not bought regular sidewalk chalk too this project would have been over before it began. As it stood, after the fireworks Tyler and I drew three bombastic roman candles at the end of the driveway and were rewarded twice by passersby who commented on their neon-quality. But to tell the truth, Tyler’s hands glowed more than the driveway did which didn’t exactly send me into paroxyms of joy.

But I still loved crawling around on the concrete with this funny little kid who provided nonstop running commentary, as well as great design ideas. During the fireworks a long single line of geese paraded right next to us across the yard and into the lake where they huddled in terror until the sky stopped exploding. Right afterward Tyler drew the lake and suggested I make some geese. By the time we covered all available space the Fourth of July had been faithfully captured in chalk and my knees looked like two ripe tomatoes. Unfortunately, the glow chalk also failed to show up on camera, so you can’t see the finished product.

Believe it or not, I hardly gave more than a glancing thought to books this whole weekend (okay, so there might have been SEVERAL glancing thoughts), but both online and mall sales hummed along nicely in the background despite my inattention. To my surprise, the mall outstripped online, but online wasn’t bad at all. Here’s the big news though. Remember the chair I bought for the booth a couple weeks ago? I mentioned that I’d priced it, but didn’t care one way or the other if it sold. Well, guess what? It sold! So now I’m back to having nowhere for people to sit. I must say though that this was one really cool chair. I wish I’d snapped a picture while I had three chances to do it, but I didn’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’m beginning to think that if books really do go belly-up someday I may have a hidden flair for antique furniture! Who knew?

But as good as all that is, the important thing is we had a satisfying weekend with our family -- perfect weather; cute kids; great food, especially an east Indian blackberry and watermelon compote in ginger syrup; a trip to Medina’s Big Toy which Moira helped build back in 1993 when she was a senior in high school; wonderful Medina fireworks; a wide-eyed baby who LOVED them; and the fanciest driveway in the neighborhood.

But the very best gift of the holiday was what my daughter said as we climbed the stairs to bed with two tired little boys.

“You may not have gotten $10 worth of chalk, Mom. But you more than made up for it in Gran-worship!”

The Power of a Letter

My thoughts today are focused on letters – not the letters of the alphabet, but the result of arranging those alphabetical letters into a charming and old-fashioned thing called personal correspondence. You know how much I love finding packets of letters such as those I shared with you some time back tracing an early 20th century romance in Akron. What got me to thinking about it again is a challenge extended by fellow bookseller Kristian Strom in his recent blog post. Having spent an afternoon with a noted writer from Kansas he was struck by the fact that this fellow actually gets letters – real, honest-to-God-and-Emily-Post letters delivered in the mail as though it were the 1940’s. Not only did this make Kristian long for letters of his own, but motivated him to revive the lost art of correspondence by challenging his readers to join him in a 21 day stint of writing and mailing personal letters to friends, family, and favorite authors. While I didn’t formally sign up for the challenge – I don’t think I know 21 people to send letters TO – I am definitely going to send at least one. By the time you get to the end of this post you’ll know the recipient.

Ever since I was a kid I loved letters and practically welded myself to the mailbox in hopes of getting one. For years I had two penpals, a girl named Astrid from Sweden and another girl named Bridget from County Clare, Ireland. I acquired the first one through the kid’s page in the Akron Beacon Journal and the second was a niece of my Irish grandmother’s Irish friend, Nan Rainey, who if she had been British would have given Mary Poppins serious cause to polish up her resume. But it wasn’t until I was in high school that I acquired the ultimate penpal. I apologize if I’ve told you this story before, but I don’t think I have, and if I did it’s one of my better ones anyway, so pour a cup of coffee, take a break, and settle back.

It was Christmas 1968 and I was a reluctant member of the Future Teachers of America. I say reluctant because I had no intention of being a teacher. As soon I could get an education and break loose from bondage I was off to New York City to write the Great American Novel. My mother, however, believed that my career choices were limited to just three jobs – teacher, nurse, or nun. Seeing as how I’m not patient enough for the first, too squeamish for the second, and not nearly holy or quiet enough for the third, I didn’t give a nansecond's notice to any of them. To keep the peace though I did join the Future Teachers of America, but only for the Christmas party which was enough to get my membership duly noted in the yearbook and my mother off my back.

As it turned out, I needed one meeting AND one service project to make the yearbook, but as luck would have it, the party presented a made-to-order option so easy it was almost cheating. Pages of the Akron Beacon Journal adorned with festive red and green garland shrouded the blackboard that frigid afternoon, each filled with the names and addresses of local guys serving in Vietnam. Most of the Future Teachers got pretty jazzed over the idea of keeping up the morale – so much so that they tried out all the last names with their own to find the one that sounded best just in case there should be a romantic conquest involved. After all, in those days one of the big attractions of teaching was having the summer off to spend with your future kids. I, of course, was off to the Big Apple, so there was no WAY I wanted to snag a husband from godforsaken Ohio of all places. Besides, I had a boyfriend who was making me crazy enough. The way I saw it, practically anyone would do, so I sauntered over to the boards, planted my short self in front of the first page I saw, and only briefly mulled over the names at eye level. Eric struck me as a good name – solid, dependable, the kind of guy deserving of a package of cookies and a letter from a teenage girl with literary aspirations. So Eric Kindig it was. I pulled out a pen from my bookbag and crossed the name off the list with a deep sense of satisfaction. Whew -- off the hook!

Immediately replies poured in to the Future Teachers, but not for me. By the time I’d given up on it I didn’t even care because almost every single letter my friends received was invariably stupid and/or vacuous. When the burning question is “what are your measurements?” (mine were something like ten-five-ten) you know you haven’t missed a darn thing. But then one day in late January I returned home from school to find a letter so thick it was actually a packet. My mother was ironing and I was standing over the heat register in my plaid Catholic girl uniform skirt (which I always kept fetchingly rolled at the waist) reading the letter. Even as I write this I am back in that dining room in south Akron in the tall ugly white house which the city ultimately, and mercifully, demolished for urban renewal.

But the letter! Oh my God, to this day I can remember the blood shooting through my veins like a shower of liquid meteors. The guy could write! The guy had a college degree! The guy read books! Currently he was reading Michner’s Hawaii and pondering the travesty of the missionaries attempts to squelch the native culture. The guy cared about people too! Pages and pages told the story of the wandering children of war, especially the little Vietnamese soda girls whom the soldiers taught to swear and then laughed when they innocently repeated it. The guy also had a girlfriend. A considerable section was devoted to the girl back home who was a REAL teacher with a passion for her work, unlike me who was an out and out fake in the teaching department. In fact, he had just returned from an R&R spent with the lovely Pat in Hawaii which was why he was so late to respond. I guess that part didn’t make a big impression.

“Mom,” I said. “I’m going to marry this guy.”

Of course she laughed. And rolled her eyes. And told me I was off on yet another one of my “tangents”,  which on the surface was probably true.

Except that it wasn’t. Two and a half years later I did marry him. We met January 17, 1970, my freshman year in college, got engaged February 6, 1970, and got married June 20, 1970. I was nineteen years old to his 26 and we had never even exchanged pictures, much less talked about romance. As you know, we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary last month.

So, in the end, I never did move to New York City. In fact, I ended up only about twenty-five geographic miles from where I started, but in other kinds of miles it was more than halfway around the world. I didn’t become a novelist either, but for a long time people actually did pay me to write stuff, and I’m still writing stuff here. The important thing is that a letter, written on pale pink stationery in schoolgirl penmanship, changed my life in ways I could not possibly have imagined. I suppose some people would say that I gave up my dreams too soon. But they would be wrong.

I am, and always will be, a woman of letters.

Good for Its Age

Okay, I’m on a rant today, no question about it. But I absolutely have to go on record as saying that if one more person tells me that a book is “good for its age” I’m going to do a Sylvia Plath and stick my head in the oven! Age has no bearing on how the book looks! What impacts a book’s condition is how it has been handled and stored by its previous owners. A book from the 1600’s can be pristine and one from last week can look like it got run over by the mail truck. What got me so worked up about this is that last night Eric went to see the collection I mentioned in my last post. He’d talked to the owner on the phone previously and had been assured that everything was “good for its age” – a sure tip-off that what you find is not going to leave you reaching for your checkbook. Considering the fiasco of a few months ago when the “old” books turned out to be common novels from the 1980’s, I would have shut the whole thing down then and there. But Eric, God bless him, is the eternal optimist. He'd forgotten all about it.

As I write this, Frank Sinatra merrily sings High Hopes in my head because that’s what Eric had until one sweeping glance at the broken bindings, foxing, insect holes, and silverfishing sent his “high apple pie in the sky hopes” crashing to the ground with a mighty splat. The piece de resistance though was a cloudy plastic bag containing a lone volume. Evidently the owner thought this one must be even better than the rest seeing as how someone had taken the trouble to segregate it. All I can say is he should be eternally grateful that Eric didn’t open it or Stanley Steamer would have making a house call as we speak. The book was in rigor mortis – dead from a fatal case of red rot. I’m sure you’ve seen this – it’s a deterioration of leather bindings that produces a reddish brown powdery substance that stains your hands and anything you touch. You can’t reverse it, though I remember seeing a product in the Brodart catalog that contains and seals it. But for the book-in-a-bag a surface application would be about as useful as painting the ceiling to keep the rain out. Needless to say, seller and would-be buyer held two vastly different estimations of the collection’s value.

What’s interesting about this is that there actually WAS something Eric would have bought. The seller also had around forty-five Franklin Library volumes. I call them Easton Press wannabes, but my husband loves them -- LOVES them. Ask Andrea Klein from Bookseller in Akron. Every time we go to a NOBS meeting at her store he buys one and exalts its many charms all the way home. Turns out, the seller had invited a large Cleveland dealer, who will remain nameless, to have first dibs on the entire collection. But alas, said dealer took one look at the pretty decorated spines of the Franklins and declared them “worthless” which resulted in his forced exit from the premises. So now here’s the one person in all of northeastern Ohio who adores these books and is willing to make a fair offer for them -- and what happens? The seller wants an additional hundred dollars. I’m amazed.

I’m even more amazed that the one person in all of northeastern Ohio who's crazy about them walked! But I'm sure glad he did.

P.S. If you saw this before I changed it, the green book was actually a Signed First Editions Club. The brown book above is a Franklin Library.

An Ode to Easton

The Magical Makeover is back on track. And not only that, but yesterday twenty-four Easton Press titles, all of which look hot off the press, blew in on the morning wind. Oh such rapture! Such elation! Such bliss! The sight of them is enough to make you want to grab the stub of a pencil and compose an ode on the spot. The sad part is that I want to SEE them. I want to walk past them lined up like fetching little girls in formation behind the nun in the flying wimple in the Madeline books. I want them safely snuggled on the built-in shelves in the living room where we can sit before dinner, sip our evening wine, and feast our eyes on their leather loveliness. So put them there, you say. But if only I could! The reality is that there is not enough room for even one more book on those enormous shelves, much less two dozen. I know I could move some others to clear space, but the Eastons would be better off out of the sun anyway. One of the reasons they’re so blindingly beautiful is that they have resided in a cabinet , untouched, behind glass, for more than two decades. Besides, their seclusion in the closet in Moira's childhood room will no doubt soften the blow when they sell.

Oh, yes, I know all about how their prices have plummeted thanks to sellers who know nothing about quality books and care even less. But I don’t care about those sellers. The first thing I said when Eric brought them in the house was, “I am NOT casting these pearls before swine!” which of course is a biblical way of saying that the book sites aren’t getting their clutches on these babies! I refuse to pay the commission and the extra postage on the large ones. But even more than that, I refuse to play bookseller limbo. How low they go will be determined by me, not by the last seller in the line-up. I will price them fairly, but also with a degree of respect for the books themselves. So that being said, I’m left with only two sales avenues – my secret site and the antiques mall. For now I’m going with the former, but later, I might take a few to the mall for the holidays

Of course all of that will have to wait because we are deep in the throes of the Magical Makeover. Sunday night it started looking like the whole shebang had slipped off track and hit a brick wall. We opened the can of Cashmere paint from Sherwin Williams (which, I might add, came with a cashmere price tag), rolled on a test patch, and nearly had a conniption when the wall took on the color of old underwear. Well, one of us nearly had a conniption. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who. The important thing is that when we woke up yesterday morning it had dried to the perfect shade of grey I had so painstakingly chosen. And I do mean painstakingly because by the time I was done musing over the various hues we had enough little paint chip cards to play gin rummy.

Eric applied the first coat on half the room this morning, which means that all we have to do now is pull out the built-in desk, finish the first coat on everything , slap on the second one, paint the trim, paint and install the new closet door, install the hardware, paint the ceiling, paint the cabinets black, change the overhead light, roll out the new rug, put together the new desk and move everything back in – without going offline if possible. Piece of cake, right?

Well, maybe not. Even though I deep-sixed my annual Fourth of July bash this year, the Michiganders will still be here for the weekend. And – get this -- tonight Eric is off to see yet another collection.

Shooting for A Whineless Summer!

We have been crazy-busy since I last wrote -- beginning work on my office, buying books, listing books, and once even taking time out for fun. Last night we went to Playhouse Square in Cleveland to see Jersey Boys with our friends Tom and Jessica. We had orchestra seats with a large aisle behind us, so if the spirit moved us we could have danced to, and with, the oldies. But all it took was a quick look around to realize that the oldies were US! However, as I pointed out to Jessica, she and I are young oldies due to the fact that we were not yet in high school when The Four Seasons had their first big hit with Sherry. The year was 1962 and I was eleven to Jessica’s twelve. Unlike our husbands, we didn’t come of age until the British invasion and the protest songs of Dylan, Baez, and Collins. Not only were the clothes way cuter by then (loved that Mary Quant look), but the music had vastly improved too. So, while I enjoyed the singing suits and their stylized dancing, give me Bob, Joan and Judy any day.

But this post isn’t about music. It’s about books, so I have a question for you. What do checkers, Bobby Jones and Chinese erotica have in common? Give? They are all subjects of the new books I bought yesterday and today. The Bobby Jones booklet pleases me most because of that STUPID mistake I’ve told you about at least twice when I grossly underpriced a rare piece of Jones ephemera. I will not belabor that dead horse except to say that while this piece doesn’t hit such stratospheric heights it’s still pretty darn good and gives me a deep sense of partial vindication. As for the checkers books, they aren’t overly valuable – around $25-35 each, but I’ve sold a couple before and now have a half dozen more. The best one I ever had, hands-down (not monetarily), was a book about the seventh American Checker Tournament held at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago in 1929. Samuel Gonotsky of Brooklyn won and I sold the book to his grandson. I could have had another copy yesterday, but I passed on it -- how can you top selling the book to a Gontosky descendent? I’m telling you, I get so excited when I sell some obscure item tied to the buyer’s family I am practically in orbit.

The Chinese erotica on the other hand is – um – virgin terrority for me. I can’t tell you too much about it, as it’s written in French, but I do know that Fleur en Fiole d’Or somehow translates into Jin Ping Mei cihua which was written at the end of the Ming Dynasty and was the first novel to present sex graphically – as opposed to metaphorically, I guess. It’s a two volume set in pristine condition, slipcase and all, printed in the mid-1980’s. I had actually heard of Jin Ping Mei cihua, but couldn't remember how or why. I didn't even deliberate over it -- just  took a gamble and it turned out fine.

I also bought three other little French books, each in a golden slipcase, one signed art book, and a leather Civil War history set complete in four volumes. The latter is a little rough on the outside, but pristine inside and will not be sold online anyway. This is definitely a store item. It would also work well in the mall, but I don’t have a locked case and experience has shown that the first commandment of mall selling is “Thou shalt not leave small, expensive items in the wild” and the second is “thou shalt not leave antiquarian books in the wild because mall shoppers do not know how to handle them.” So off to the store it goes, or maybe to one of Eric’s shows in the fall. There’s no rush – we’re happy to have it hang around for awhile.

If you recall, last summer all I did was whine about my lack of books.”It’s the summer of my discontent,” I wailed, as week after week passed with little coming in.

For the present at least the acquisition blues have passed us by this summer, but of course that’s subject to change at any time. The good news is tomorrow is the Medina flea market which nets almost zero books, but sometimes very nice ephemera. (And sometimes not a blessed thing.) Then on Monday Eric is going to see a collection in Medina. I have given up asking questions of would-be sellers because they always tell you what you want to hear whether it's right or not. But the guy lives close by so we agreed to wing it. As you know though, I hate telling people their books aren’t good, so in case these are not, I'm sending my front man!

Besides, I have serious listing to do

Playing Charing Cross

Well, so far the Magical Makeover is not going as expected. Eric has a cold, so will not be wielding any paintbrushes for the duration. As for me, I spent all day yesterday futilely trying to make my idea for the art project conform to a flat surface. By the time I threw in the scissors and admitted defeat the basement floor and my wrapping bench looked like the streets of New York after a ticker-tape parade. I was so disappointed, but it’s clear that I just can’t do it, thanks to both the size and the one-dimensional quality of canvas. As soon as I picked up a box and laid-out part of the design (without glue) -- presto! – everything came together just as I’d imagined it. So, I guess I will make a box for the top of my bookcase instead. But I still feel like a failure.

On top of that I’m mad at myself for not taking a picture at the antiques mall yesterday. Cheryl, I did it all for you, girl – got the long-requested CHAIR at Sunday’s estate sale and a very nice one too. It’s a Windsor, maybe a little bigger than it needs to be, but I love both the way it looks in the booth and the fact that it will give people a place to sit and more easily look at the lower shelves. I do have it priced, but I’m ambivalent about it. If it sells it sells; if it doesn’t it doesn’t. We also took over the last of those three bookcases we bought at the estate sale this winter to fill the space where the barrister case I sold this weekend had been. This one’s not for sale, but it practically looks like it is because it’s as empty as the library during the summer reading program. Right now I’m at an awkward spot where the existing shelves are getting crowded, but I don’t have enough mall books to fill the new ones. The new case did, however, give me a chance to display a lot of stuff face-out which might, in the end, be a good thing. As you may have guessed, Sunday's estate sale did not offer up many tomes. I did get a few nice, previously overpriced books at half off, but only about five and they’re already over there.

Actually, I’d planned to work on the new box today, but now I don’t know. Sales popped again yesterday, primarily on alibris and affiliates, though I did have a couple nice ABE orders too, including  one for the sequel to Emil and the Detectives, which I got at the very first estate sale of 2011. I featured it here back in January -- it’s written in German, so it’s not surprising that the buyer came from abe.de. An uptick in sales always tends to motivate me to work, but getting this office done motivates me too, so I think I’m going to pack up the contents of the bookcase and play it by ear. I am also going to get the books I haven’t listed from the last two auctions and the Case sale off the floor and stashed in the office closet. Besides, I need a can of silver paint for the inside of the box and I probably don’t have one.

Well, a few hours have passed and it would appear that my lack of paint is no problem, as I seemed to be too dithery today to focus. Every once in awhile this strikes me, usually when plans go awry. I start one thing, then wander away and start something else. I might even start a third thing. Since writing that last paragraph I began shelving books from the floor, switched to sorting and packing the contents of the bookcase, and now I'm back talking to you again. But the good news is I’m all done dithering. Literally, ten minutes ago, the phone rang and on the other end flowed the slow, easy voice of my friend and long-time customer Curtis from Philadelphia. Curtis had a stroke the day after Christmas. Sometime in February he called to tell me the bad news, but the stroke had taken such a toll that I had to struggle to understand him.

Here’s the interesting part though. I always send Curtis his books as soon as he orders them and he pays me when they come. It’s like playing 84 Charing Cross Road, only reversed -- he’s Helene Hanff and I’m Frank Doel. This time though the books turned up on his doorstep the exact same day that he had the stroke, which means that he never had a chance to open them until February. Initially when no check showed up I was surprised, though not overly worried. But when one still didn’t come after his call in February I knew with certainty that things had taken a sharp turn for the worse. In fact, I thought maybe the worst had happened which is why I never sent a follow-up invoice. What I didn’t know until just now is that he’d had a second stroke not long after we spoke and had spiraled down deep into the mine shaft of  depression. He called today to tell me that he’s much better and to let me know that he can take care of his bill now.

“I wouldn't leave you hanging for a penny, Miss Tess, and certainly not for $140.”

Well, of course he wouldn't -- any more than Helen would have left Frank hanging.

I knew that.

Countdown to the Magical Makeover

This week officially begins the Magical Makeover of my office. I’m pretty jazzed, not only to finally get it done, but because the timing seems good. Sales remain slower than last month, so if we need to shut down for a couple days the world won’t fall off its axis. Actually, this may have to happen because the desk I currently have is built-in, so there’s a bit of demo involved which will take place around the computer and its various appendages. Today I need to buy a pad for the new big rug I bought on ebay weeks ago and have yet to unfurl, as well as a new closet door. Most of the upstairs closet doors have been switched to raised-panel, but the one in my office retains its 1960’s louveredness. I know -- louveredness is not really a word, but it should be -- you hear it and – wham! – your mind sketches a 3D image. And it’s not pretty either.

But before we do all that stuff we are off to an estate sale. I had planned to go yesterday, but it never happened and, besides, I’m more motivated today due to the fact that I sold a three-stack barrister bookcase at the antiques mall yesterday. This is my second piece of furniture to sell – the first was that drop-dead gorgeous French table awhile back. – so I’m thinking it may be a good idea to try to find something to replace it. The sale did advertise books, but in a rather desultory fashion, so I don’t expect to be dazzled by the tomes. I’m hoping instead for some big-ticket item. As with online sales , books fell from grace a bit at the mall as soon as June 1st rolled around. While they’re still paying the freight, they’re not flipping off the shelves like acrobats.

The truth is, it feels a little weird to me to be buying stuff other than books – not that I have all that much, but I don’t want to morph into an antiques dealer either. I really doubt I will though because I don’t have a passion for it. Once in a while something jumps out and says hello – like the French table – but overall I can take it or leave it. So I think it’s safe to take a little foray into uncharted territory every once in awhile, especially in the middle of the summer doldrums. The other safety control is the fact that I’m a bit inhibited by my lack of space at the mall. The booth is small and I don’t yet have enough books to rent a second space. I think I would do it if I did, but it warrants caution. Without a steady flow of merchandise a combined $600 a month rent could blow the whole gig.

As I write this Eric is at the dreaded Litchfield flea market. I HATE this thing – the English language does not come close to having enough adjectives to describe its loathsomeness. But last Sunday he came home like a little kid whose pockets sag under the weight of two cookies, a quarter, four Matchbox cars and a live toad. Even I had to reluctantly agree that he scored big-time with the purchase of two muzzleloading rifles, both of which he originally sold years ago (they retained the store’s price tag with his handwriting). Already he doubled the total price for the two at the Indiana show last week with the sale of one. So the guy’s on a roll with optimism running like sap in the spring.

We had planned this afternoon to celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary (it’s tomorrow) with a trip to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and lunch in Little Italy, but it being Father’s Day, we quickly scratched that idea and will pick a day during the week instead. It’s not that we’ll be celebrating anything with our kids today -- Caitie’s in Maryland and Moira and Brian will be here with the little people for the Fourth of July -- it’s the crowded restaurants that put a pall on it.

I’m happy with the plan we have though and am now off to get ready to rock and roll as soon as Eric gets back from the dreaded Litchfield flea market. The vintage clothing people will fly into the estate sale in a vee formation if only for the 100 pairs of Italian shoes advertised, so we need to get to Akron no later than eleven.

So on that note, I’m outta here. Happy Father’s Day everyone!

Blessing the Booksellers

Woke up this morning and the very first thought I had was what it would be like if there were no bookstores anywhere. I know exactly what triggered it – just before I went to bed last night I pulled out some old copies of Biblio magazine from 1997, the year we began Garrison House Books, and took one of them upstairs with me. For some reason they emitted a gravitational pull back to the days when internet selling seemed radical and the Kindle wasn’t yet a glimmer in Jeff Bezos’ eye. Back then I thought – no, I KNEW -- I would do this glorious thing for the rest of my life. I had an internet friend from Florida who was 82 years old and had launched her business about a month before I launched mine. She went to the sales with a little fold-up cart, listed her books, and had more fun than probably should be legal.

“Sign me up for that and I’d die happy,” I told Eric. It never occurred to me that not twenty years later books, my solace and faithful companions since childhood, would spin like a top around the eye of a tornado.

I thought of that last night when I stumbled on an article about Baldwin’s Book Barn located in the Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania. I remember seeing their listings from my earliest days on Advanced Book Exchange and I frequently see them still. I’m sure I read the article 14 years ago, but probably not as avidly and emotionally as I did this time. Rarely am I without words, but as I write this they come slowly, so slowly, as though they, too, are in danger of extinction. Baldwin’s started in 1934 in the basement of a real estate office with a small collection of history titles, a pile of postage stamps, and a gravitational pull all its own. Gradually it grew until 1948 when the present stone barn opened its doors to book lovers seeking treasure, a good read, pleasant hours, literary conversation, and balm for the soul. Today ownership has transferred to the second generation.

“…. And for all the booksellers of the world.”

A stray line – something about God, blessings, and booksellers sprang to mind as tears sprang to my eyes. It teased and bedeviled me, that line, but the harder I tried to retrieve it the more obstinately it refused to name itself. It seemed important that I remember it though, so I climbed out of bed, went to my office and took from the shelf a tired old copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations that I got as some sort of reward from the Book of the Month Club the year I was married. Fortunately, there was only one listing with the key word booksellers.

“For I bless God in the libraries of the learned and for all the booksellers in the world.” Christopher Smart (1722-1771) Jubilate Agno.

I have no idea where I ever heard those words in the first place, though they ring with similarity to the Jubilate of The Book of Common Prayer,  but I know one thing for sure. I needed them in the dark. And I need them still in the light, if only to assauge the fear I press hard between the pages -- out of sight and out of mind. Until …

P.S. I just saw on the internet that Baldwin's Book Barn is for sale.

Playing with Paper

It’s a beautiful day, one of the few we’ve had since spring sprung, and I am about to do something radical -- I am not going to work today. See? I told you it was radical. But I worked feverishly both Friday and Saturday and uploaded a lot of new stuff this morning – for all the good any of it did. May’s robust sales have been replaced by June’s doldrums. The way this weather’s been if you don’t enjoy it when it’s good it might be a long and stormy while before you get another chance. So for today -- this gorgeous, sunny, not too hot and not too cold day -- I quit.

My youngest daughter Caitie – the one’s who’s moving to D.C. – stayed overnight last night, then hit the road about noon for RockVILLE, Maryland (I keep calling it Rockwell) where she will be living. Her boyfriend had to be at work June 3rd, so he left last week, but she stayed behind to tidy things up in Sylvania, which meant I got an extra chance to see her. Eric’s in Indiana so it was strictly a girls’ night in. I made chicken caccitorre with spaghetti and spinach salad and we talked, watched a movie, and hung out with Max the boxer and Leo the Himalyan cat, both of whom you’ve met previously. This morning I got up at my usual five a.m., but let her sleep until the animals hauled her out at eleven. Once I wrapped my few orders the tubs of collage stuff starting calling me like Jeanette MacDonald calling the Mounties. So I went upstairs, made a pot of coffee, toasted a bagel, and sat down on the basement floor and didn’t get up again until I’d touched every piece of paper in all three Rubbermaid tubs. Yeah, I’m feeling kind of arty today.

As you know, I have the famous purple office chair, a new rug, and the glorious black desk Eric got me for my birthday all waiting in the wings to transform my office into a model of efficiency and beauty and me into a neater and more elegant bookseller. A week ago yesterday we bought black paint to paint the cabinets and light gray paint for the walls and when Eric gets home (Thursday) we are going to begin the great transformation. I already bought a new wall clock to go with the new décor, but it looks like none of the current art is going to work. So I have decided to take a giant leap and make something to fill the biggest space. In the past I have always worked on boxes where everything is three-dimensional. The only flat thing I ever did was the card I made for the gift basket that served as a door prize at the Akron antiquarian book fair in April and that was SMALL. I’m talking big here, as in maybe 20”x20” give or take a few inches. Nothing like going for broke, huh?

But I’m excited because I actually have a concept in mind and had a glorious time picking out scraps and sorting them into four color piles – black, white, grey, and purple. Trouble is, I don’t think I have anywhere close to enough scraps which means I need to look again. When I’m making a box I sort of sense when the paper supply hits the right amount, but I haven’t a clue about this so I think I’d better get back down there this evening after Antiques Roadshow and give it another go.

But meanwhile there’s most of an afternoon to kill and since I have leftovers from last night I can do anything I want until I go to bed! So first, I’m going to go out on the porch and finish the last chapter of Reading My Father, Alexandra Styron’s memoir of her brilliant but seriously disturbed father, William Styron, who is perhaps best known for the unforgettable novel Sophie’s Choice. Then I think I will sashay up to the square on foot, get some new books at the library, and visit with my librarian buddy, Liz Nelson. Do I know how to have a good time, or what? In a nerdy, booky-girl sort of way I’m  practically a party animal!

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you know that that’s the plan. Meanwhile you can look at my piles of paper and try to imagine what they might turn into.

Getting Tully

“It was a dark and stormy morning …” which meant the light was terrible for taking photos of books. Yes, I could have listed other books and, yes, I could have tweaked the article for the upcoming NOBS (Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society) newsletter which I owe the editor as we speak, but neither task called my name. Instead I took to Eric’s birthday Recliner-That-Doesn’t-Look-Like-A-Recliner and finished the biography of author Jim Tully I started last month. Between auctions, sales, that cold and larynigitis thing I had going on, and the fact that the book is too beautiful for my slipshod reading habits, I had to tackle it in dribs and drabs. A few pages over coffee at breakfast (carefully), some more at night sitting bolt upright so I wouldn’t doze off and drop it, and then today – finally! – a sustained push to the surprising and even shocking ending.

I promised myself I was not going to write a blog about this because I didn’t want it to be a shameless advertisement for my friend and fellow bookseller, Paul Bauer’s, biography, written with Mark Dawidziak who used to write for the Akron Beacon Journal and is now at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I intended to stick to that too – that is, until today when the grey matter in my brain suddenly lit up like Vegas and I GOT it. For almost twenty years Bauer and Dawidziak researched an unschooled Irish-American writer from St. Mary’s, Ohio who had more lives than a cat. They even trekked out to California where they pored over the Tully papers at UCLA and sought out anyone who still remembered him even though he died in 1947.

If Jim Tully is not a household name to you, join the crowd. But the thing is, back in the day he was a popular wordsmith, penning any number of novels based on his life experiences – Shanty Irish, Circus Parade, Beggars of Life, Ladies in the Parlor, and The Bruiser, to name a few. Tully wrote in a dark gritty style that shocked his readers who had not as yet been exposed so rudely to life's underbelly. But all that happened only after he got his first break -- a job writing for Charlie Chaplin in California. The journey to literary fame and fortune began way before Chaplin when as a teenager he jumped off a train in Kent, Ohio and did his time making chain in a factory, reporting for the local newspaper, and even working as a tree surgeon for Davey Tree while he scribbled stories and dreamed of cobbling together a literary career.

Jim Tully grew up dirt poor, wound up in a hell-hole of a Catholic orphanage in Cincinnati when his  mother died and a few years later got hired out to a farmer and spent a winter lining his clothes with newspaper because he had no coat to work outdoors in such terrible cold. It's little wonder that he jumped the rails and took up the hobo life. The circus and the boxing ring came next, but I’m not going to get into all the details of his life because the book reads like a novel and I don’t want to spoil the plot. Tully was short in stature (shorter than me by half an inch at 5’1”) with a mop of curly red hair and a tough guy attitude. But the man could write and his sister knew it well before he did. Maybe it's my own Irish dysfunction or some  residual Catholic conflict seeking resolution in Tully's story, but this morning I  truly understood why Bauer and Dawidziak did this incredible thing –devoting nineteen years to a guy few people know, a guy who held  them firmly by the collar even as he moldered at Forest Lawn. Once you meet Jim Tully though I promise you will not forget him.

The authors compare him to Hemingway with one important difference – Hemingway wrote tough guy stories in an idealized way about how men should be in the world, whereas Tully wrote tough guy stories about the way men actually ARE in the world, which, the authors posit, is why one writer met immortality and the other seeks resurrection. Paul mentioned to me that in all his years as a bookseller he had never met a woman interested in Hemingway. I told him I’m not interested in Hemingway’s writing either, but I am most definitely interested in Hemingway himself, both as a person and a writer. I bet I have twenty books in my personal library about him and many more about those who surrounded him – Scott and Zelda, the Murphys, Sylvia Beach, Dos Possos, Ezra Pound, Martha Gelhorn, Gertrude Stein, Alice B.Toklas, Maxwell Perkins etc. While I have found glimmers of vulnerability and even softeness in Hemingway, to me Tully remained always the freckle-faced little boy packed off to the orphanage at the tender age of six, too innocent to realize he’d been sold down the river by the parish priest and his ne’er-do-well father. Imagine doing such a vile injustice to a little boy whose heart was broken over the loss of his mother, Biddy. I'll bet if it were in her power to do it Biddy would have flown out of the grave like a wild woman and knocked their two heads together like a pair of cymbals.

Anyway, it’s a great story even though I doubt I’ll read any of Tully’s books which have been reprinted by Kent State University Press in tandem with the biography which they also published. It’s not that the authors weren’t selling the product. They were, and with great conviction too, because it’s through the books that they made Tully’s acquaintance in the first place. But, as with Hemingway, my interest lies in the complexities of  Jim Tully both as a person and a writer. Imagine the leap of faith it took to entertain the notion that you could write when you have no real education to speak of and have to scrabble like a chicken in the dirt every single day for your very existence.

It’s far more faith than I ever had.  And I certainly do admire it.