[lit-ideas] Re: Potable Literature
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 08:33:04 -0700
on 5/27/04 7:41 PM, Erin Holder at erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I'm sorry, David, but can you please explain the concept of a library
> bookstore? It's a library, but it's a store? How can it be a store?
Well it's a bit like Harrods really, only without the smocked terrorist
sales ladies, armed with perfume bottles, oh and the zoo. Vast, it is.
Surely Canadian libraries have shelves of books for sale, maintained by the
"friends of the library," and devoted to raising money to supplement the
library's acquisitions budget? My little local library has a table-full of
libary discards and donated books; the central library in Beaverton has a
three-roomed bungalow devoted to the same purpose. Multnomah County library
has a store and an annual book sale. The difference between these and, for
example, the "for sale" shelves at the library near my father's house in
Britain, is that here--in spite of the fact that Powells will buy many used
books, or maybe because selling books to Powells is often a pain--people
actually donate good books to the library, which then sometimes sells them
for a pittance. (My library charges one dollar for hardbacks and twenty
five cents for paperbacks). Thus two hardback volumes by Norman MacCaig
cost two dollars. I buy books, read them, re-donate them; thus you might
say I re-create the late nineteenth and early twentieth century for-profit
version of the lending library.
Andy wrote:
I want to know about the unbeatable and unopened dead horses in the fridge.
Are you sauteeing dog food?
Reply:
See, "Whatever Happened to Hunter Thompson," vol 1. 5/25/04 : Salt Lake
City's Dead Horse Ale, slogan, "You Can't Beat It."
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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