Heraclitus is credited with stating that “everything flows , nothing remains “. It is certainly true in the world of business and in the world of the book business. I opened my first retail store in 2002. It was a gift shop. I was very happy to obtain a merchant account. I didn’t mind the fact that I had to pay a little over $1000.00 for my terminal and printer – it was a cost of doing business. My gift shop did a low volume of credit card purchases and I paid a minimum monthly fee of about $30.00 I also paid a monthly statement fee. Altogether I paid a minimum of $35.00 a month in fees not associated with transaction fees. I accepted Visa,
Author Archive
In the midst of begats and died one name stands out – Enoch. In the Christian Bible book of Genesis the story is told that “Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him” . I know that I am not the only one who has wondered about this story. Later in the Bible the story is told of Elijah who was taken up to heaven in a chariot – no mention is made as to what happened to him or Enoch afterwards. Did they die ? Did Enoch live forever ? I don’t think we will ever find the answer to those questions. And don’t even get me started about the Sumerians and the Annunaki ! I am fascinated with something
It must have been in 9th grade or so when I first read the poem in my high school English class. The imagery of the poem entranced me ! It became one of my favorite poems. Like a piece of clothing washed too many times , life and time washed away the vibrant memory of the poem and replaced it with something faded and fragmentary. College came and I fell in love with other poets such as Boudelaire and somewhere along the way I discovered one of my life long favorite poems “The Hound of Heaven” penned by Francis Thompson . Long after high school and long after college shards of that poem would often manifest themselves into my consciousness. It was a poem
I love books and always have. I would have a hard time imagining a world without books. I know that there are societies that still exist that don’t have books and they seem to get along just fine. I am not an anthropologist and don’t know all of the social ramifications that come about once a society develops the capacity to write things down into book form and to pass that knowledge along to future generations. Certainly oral story telling and passing down knowledge via oral means has served humanity well and still serves many cultures well , but books seem to be a powerful means of insuring that knowledge is preserved . I sit looking at a volume of Gay’s Fables published in 1793.
This is the second part of my “Shipping Large Boxes of Books” In the first part of this I related the story of shipping a large set of “The Encyclopaedia Britannica” to a customer at a US Embassy. Early in October I got another order for a set of “The Encyclopaedia Britannia. This order was for the large format version of this edition which was printed on fine rice paper. This again was the 1910 / 1911 edition which is considered to be the last great version of this set. This was a very heavy set of books. The total weight of the books was almost 100 pounds. If memory serves me correctly I sent one box which weighed 43 pounds and another which weighed 48