Thursday, November 12, 2009

Born with nothing and raised on lots more of the same

One of my favorite used book stores closed down a few weeks ago. There are two other good used book outlets remaining in San Diego but the one that closed had the greatest selection and the highest turnover in stock. The remaining store closest to me is kind of stuffy and the one downtown is run by a couple of sharp operators who know the real value of books and have an internet presence to exploit sales, something the one that closed and the other remaining store did not take advantage of. I blame all of you for not reading enough books in print to support it. Shame on you.

The upside to the store closing was being able to snag lots of books that I otherwise thought were too pricey on previous visits at substantial discounts. The W. B. Huie paperbook below, in spite of the visible wear, was still out of my sane price range until the day of the closing sale. Unaware the store was shutting down I had made my usual pilgrimage there and had gathered up a bunch of books and pulp magazines. I was fully prepared to pay full price for them. Instead the proprietor quoted me a cost of seven dollars for the pile. I felt like I was ripping him off and protested, offering more but he declined. I suspect he wanted to avoid the cost of shipping and storing leftover stock and knew the collectibles were going to a good home.

Yay for me!
So represented here are the front and back covers featuring the classic and perhaps most famous cover art by Robert A. Maguire for the novel The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956 re-issue). The book was re-released in conjunction with the movie of the same name featuring Jane Russell. The book is a good read and far more honest about Mamie than the rather sanitized film. The Maguire image on the cover is one of the inspirations for the pulp noir character of Diamond Bomb.

6 comments:

  1. I hope you took advantage and got even more books.

    I haven't een to a used bookstore in quite a while, but I got some good books for my daughter at a resale shop a few weeks ago.

    Most of my reading now is for a 7 year old, but there are some good books out there for that age.

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  2. This wouldn't have happened to have been a bookstore with a ton of odd decorations abounding? If so, I shopped the same one and came away with quite a haul. Agreed it is sad to see it go. I just happened upon it not 4 weeks before it closed. Back to the shop with the cats, I guess. Do sometimes find fun stuff in OB, but you have to go to OB, that's a drawback.

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  3. It is this one: http://tinyurl.com/yh8nsdz

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  4. Another bookstore bites the dust at the mercy of the invisible hand of the marketplace. :o(

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  5. That was the one. I hauled off quite a bit of their medical books, and some of the paperback SF.

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