07.21.03
The A-B-E of bookfinding
Getting hold of hard-to-find books used to be an involved business of, first of all, researching which sellers might deal with the book in question, second, seeing if anyone has it, third, putting the book on their ‘wanted’ lists, fourth, fifth, and sixth, waiting.
Things are a little different these days. On Friday afternoon I decided that I really ought to pick up second-hand copies of some books by the ‘micro-historian’ Carlo Ginzburg.
Getting hold of The Cheese and the Worms might not be so difficult, but I wasn’t so keen on buying 1983’s Night Battles in paperback for a whopping £48.
Fortunately, there is abebooks. Ten minutes of research located very affordable copies of three different books at three different UK booksellers. I put them in my shopping basket, hit the button, and forgot all about it.
When I logged on this morning I found that all three booksellers had acknowledged the orders and dispatched over the weekend. I don’t know what cut abebooks takes, but it must surely increase the simple number of books each seller handles. For me, it’s so simple it almost makes me pine for the dogged, long-winded pursuit required in the good old days.
Almost.
Paul said,
July 23, 2003 at 11:16 am
Er, I seem to recall having a copy of Carlo Ginzburg’s ‘The Cheese and the Worms’ in my possession many moons (and many house moves) ago. Either:
a) I lent it to someone, possibly even you.
or
b) It was actually yours to begin with, in which case I either still have it in a box somewhere, or when you get around to buying it you should send the bill to me…..
Jon said,
July 23, 2003 at 1:21 pm
I never had or read ‘The Cheese and the Worms’ (until today!), so you’re off the hook there.