mutterings and ravings no. 87
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 00:02:53 -0800
Sender: Bibliofind News and Views <NEWS@BIBLIO.BIBLIOFIND.COM>
From: Harry Nudel <nudel-soho@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: m&r....not my cup of sea....
well it's been that kind of that kind of week..with my cc...delaying
payment on a 5,500 book..the cc companies seem to do whatever they
want..which is whatever is best for them...nice if we had 5,500 bookseller
voices to fight them together...yesterday the phone order came in for M. Verrier's
FANTIN-LATOUR....$40.00..nothing special..but the women seemed anxious and
very grateful that it was there..looked it up again as i had when i put it
on two months ago...there were still two copies at 12.00...same as
mine's....they must have been sold weeks, months ago..still
cheapening the space...thought i was slow to remove stuff...but there's
always someone even slower...bought the Fantin-Latour for a buck 23rd st Sally....disappointed at
the 12.00..but i'm generally disappointed...then when I saw it again at the
11 st Sally for another buck.....thought deeply whether i needed another
unsold one..big spender that i is..plunked down another dollar...courage
nudel courage...home from there passed a motlied cavernous furniture store on 4th
ave...the heart of Books-of-Yester Year Country..used to house a bookseller
actually who actually lived in my building..dead now..'nother
story.....anyways...they used to have books all the time..half a decade
ago..they bought a large lot..and let them broil in the sun on outside
tables all Aug. long...some good good stuff..gone toney and not to be
bothered with books now.....dry as Penntucky on a Sunday morn...Anyways from anyways..kind of know the owner from sight...about a
decade ago...this self-same store bought the ESTATE OF HEMINGWAY'S SECOND
WIFE (MARY???)..it was donated by her to a hospital..and the hospital call
this junk a la mode store to cart it away....letters, notes, scraps of
Ernest H...it's Ripley's Believe it or Not and I hardly believe
it.....anyways from anyways...the STUFF ends up at Tepper's Auction...where
of course it causes a sensation..armed guards are hired by the DEALERS who
are going to bid to protect it....Mr Junk makes lots of money...not being
privy to the doings of the Upper Echelons of the Trade..i'm sure THEY. all
make a forture...a note goes for 40 grand...some musings about the title of
A farewell or sun also.....On this day...2 weeks ago..i go in for old times and nothin' better to
do sakes..and they actually have a few stray books...some Jungian stuff in
the back in a book case...and some cheaper novels in a large
glass-pannelled barrister bookcase mid store..think of almost buying the
h.c. Neumann's History of Consciousness from Bollingen...but ah...back a
few days later still thinking hard 'bout the History of Consciousness..when
I look in glass case next to the what i am sure is a Book Club C.S.
Forrester...and there next to it is a Patrick O'Brian and next to it an
Alexander Kent..O'Brian's 1st book American First..early Kent 1st..not the
greatest copies VG only...8 dollars for the two down to 7..should have been
6...Occurs to me the reason I missed them the first time is that I really
no longer look at fiction...when I started in the early 18th century...i
used to look at every novel at these mega-charity sales 1,000's upon
1,000's of Titles, now Modern Fiction with its bright covers
blur-mesmerizes me...hyper-bored i look for something older like me...Or to make a long story longer you could say I missed the O'Brian and
the Kent because they were just not my cup of sea...Drn...
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