Phoenix Books Rise Again

One of the publishers from crime fiction’s past, was a little name that tried to become a bigger power among heavy hitters. Not necessarily known for their quality, they did try hard. They signed up some known authors whose contracts perhaps expired with other publishers, and some names never heard of before or since. Collectors … Read more

Serendipity At Allentown PA Ephemera Show

Finding desirous books can be quite serendipitous. For example, last Saturday at a very large book and ephemera show in Allentown PA, I found three titles I never dreamed of locating within a reasonable budget, and certainly not in person. Maybe through bookfinder’s ABE., or Biblio, but on a table or shelf right in front … Read more

Pinning Books

One of the Christmas books available on a Pinterest board

I suppose this is a good tool for online sellers. After all, even the bookshopblog has a spot where you can ‘pin’ what you see. ABE sent another one of their cool little articles, and I thought I’d be seeing a nice ditty on holiday books, the why, wherefores, etc. No- after I clicked-a Pinterest board popped up filled with sunny sideways and front covers of Christmas titles.When you click on Santa, a page full of  the edition displayed  and the various booksellers who have it for your buying convenience, appears. Why should this bother me? It shouldn’t–and it doesn’t when booksellers are touting their wares. It seems odd, but then so does the entire internet, but I’ve gotten used to it the way an old person gets used to new fangled ideas.

What drives me to distraction, is once an image is ‘pinned’ it is there for eternity. No matter what you may do, say, remove the book from sale, or in my case, make my entire flickr account private–tons and tons of my personal images that I worked on to restore, are pinned and re-pinned and re-pinned for the next millennium, and  there isn’t a darn thing I can do about it. Ask for them to be taken down, you say? Yeah, that’l happen–they could care less about public domain images taken without permission from a public site, even if it isn’t public anymore. Apparently once it is pinned, that generates an entirely new self reliant image–that’s the best way I can describe it, having no understanding of these things. So although a ‘link’ is supplied back to the source–(a tiny lip balm for a monstrous gash)–doesn’t matter if the link no longer works and the image now private–it’s still up on a person’s board. And will be taken and re-pinned again and again.

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Kate Greenaway–Too Cute For Comfort

  Another ABE e-mail came my way and I was surprised to see it was about the illustrator of children’s books, Kate Greenaway. Her work is everywhere-that’s what public domain can do for a long dead artist. I knew nothing about her life, the article at ABE sheds some light on it, and the fact … Read more

Are Some Booksellers Out of Register?

It happened again. I found a title with divine illustrations that I could afford, and ordered it from ABE or another seller on the bookfinder website. I eagerly mutilated the box tearing tape and cardboard in my haste to see the promised art. A Mother Goose naturally, this one illustrated by Edna Cooke, a new … Read more

LOL

I was just at ABE books looking for a particular old children’s book, and happened across this subject. I haven’t posted any of these for a long time, so I thought I’d just throw it up, for the heck of it. One novel that deserves to be on the list–Pest Control, one of the funniest … Read more

No Root Canal for Author Zane Grey

A dentist? Zane Grey gave up dentistry to become the most famous western pulp fiction author?  I guess he just couldn’t sink his teeth into the profession. This interesting factoid and a couple of others highlight a look at the prolific output of Mr. Grey and his influence on our ideas of what the West … Read more