Wednesday, December 28, 2005
I'm in the doghouse
I came home last night and my usually charming and sanguine husband was looking at me with a distinctly fussy pout. In response to my raised eyebrow he said, pointedly, "I read your blog today. Did you forget that I gave you a book for Christmas, and that I gave you another book for your birthday?"
Oh dear. I didn't forget, when I said people never dare to give me books I was of course thinking of my parents, sisters, in-laws, out-laws, and a few friends. My guy is an entity unto himself. Or rather, we are an entity. But to make matters worse, he even carefully conspired with the bookseller down the street from me to find books that would both surprise and delight me. Which they did. So, to right a wrong:
Birthday gift: Bookstores Can Be Saved by Adolph Kroch, Booksellers Catalog Service, 1952. A small hardcover book with the author's fourteen proposals to save the book business from financial collapse. I particularly like "Proposal Number 9: Sponsor bookselling schools." "Successful graduates of the school should be given the degree of 'Book Counsellor' to denote creative work in an honorable profession." (p.46) Interesting book overall, because the same problems the author is responding to are what is still happening in many new bookstores today: deep discounts, cheap editions and remainders, and of course underpaid and undervalued clerks.
Christmas gift: Hand-Bound Books by Clara Buffum, self-published, Providence, 1935. Binding techniques and the history of making books by hand. Scarce and very lovely in its printed paper wraps.
Thanks, sweetie-pie. To quote Cole, "You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad, you're the top, you're a Berlin ballad..."
Oh dear. I didn't forget, when I said people never dare to give me books I was of course thinking of my parents, sisters, in-laws, out-laws, and a few friends. My guy is an entity unto himself. Or rather, we are an entity. But to make matters worse, he even carefully conspired with the bookseller down the street from me to find books that would both surprise and delight me. Which they did. So, to right a wrong:
Birthday gift: Bookstores Can Be Saved by Adolph Kroch, Booksellers Catalog Service, 1952. A small hardcover book with the author's fourteen proposals to save the book business from financial collapse. I particularly like "Proposal Number 9: Sponsor bookselling schools." "Successful graduates of the school should be given the degree of 'Book Counsellor' to denote creative work in an honorable profession." (p.46) Interesting book overall, because the same problems the author is responding to are what is still happening in many new bookstores today: deep discounts, cheap editions and remainders, and of course underpaid and undervalued clerks.
Christmas gift: Hand-Bound Books by Clara Buffum, self-published, Providence, 1935. Binding techniques and the history of making books by hand. Scarce and very lovely in its printed paper wraps.
Thanks, sweetie-pie. To quote Cole, "You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad, you're the top, you're a Berlin ballad..."
