Thanks, this made me smile. I'd be interested in hearing your advice on selling books (yes, sometimes necessary, albeit psychologically damaging). At least in the UK, serious dealers currently seem to want to pay well under 10% of the price you'll later see the book advertised for on Abe. eBay is an obvious option, but really, who wants to spend their life photographing & describing books, packaging them, going to the Post Office and dealing with customer queries? I've given hundreds of books to colleagues and to charity shops. But do you have a cunning plan for something that gets at least a little financial return on what for many of us is a truly gigantic lifetime investment? Best wishes with your work.
My usual routine is Amazon (quick answer ballpark figure) Bookfinder (compares a wide variety of sellers) then World of Books (buys unsold charity shop stock and is often missed by other two). But I often fall at the first hurdle - anything over £100 on Amazon rarely drops to say £25 after ferreting.
Am I alone in finding standards of scholarship from previous decades far superior to those of our own? There was a particularly good period from about 1960 until about 1990, but since then there has been a steady deterioration.
I love a well-crafted battalion campaign history published between 1945 and 1950, especially if it has those pithy-punny chapter summaries and a wide margin containing dates and casualty details.
Old books are better. Like old dogs without a home, they show up at our doors, tails wagging.
Am I a psycho if I like to crack the spine of a crisp, brand new book and write in the margins, as opposed to a shelf-weathered one? 🙃
Indeed you are!
In red ink and CAPS?
Thanks, this made me smile. I'd be interested in hearing your advice on selling books (yes, sometimes necessary, albeit psychologically damaging). At least in the UK, serious dealers currently seem to want to pay well under 10% of the price you'll later see the book advertised for on Abe. eBay is an obvious option, but really, who wants to spend their life photographing & describing books, packaging them, going to the Post Office and dealing with customer queries? I've given hundreds of books to colleagues and to charity shops. But do you have a cunning plan for something that gets at least a little financial return on what for many of us is a truly gigantic lifetime investment? Best wishes with your work.
My usual routine is Amazon (quick answer ballpark figure) Bookfinder (compares a wide variety of sellers) then World of Books (buys unsold charity shop stock and is often missed by other two). But I often fall at the first hurdle - anything over £100 on Amazon rarely drops to say £25 after ferreting.
Am I alone in finding standards of scholarship from previous decades far superior to those of our own? There was a particularly good period from about 1960 until about 1990, but since then there has been a steady deterioration.
I love a well-crafted battalion campaign history published between 1945 and 1950, especially if it has those pithy-punny chapter summaries and a wide margin containing dates and casualty details.