Bookaholic

So, we’re working to trim the edges off, and get more done in less time (Hmm, didn’t I try to escape from that through most of my life?).

A few sites key everything bookish to the ISBN number, and, yes, that works to bring up boilerplate copy, the correct edition, yadda yadda. On competitive sites, that does not provide any uniqueness except price. And, by the way, how do those sellers on Amazon survive selling at $0.99? Even with a shipping allowance, you’d have to be essentially a shipping operation with tons of the same stuff to make that work. Which we’re not. We = me and my very part-time employee, whom I prize for the forthrightness to argue with me.

The other problem I have with hanging everything on the ISBN is that a lot of my books, the ones I gravitate toward, are pre-ISBN. Before the Sixties, sometimes before 1900. They require a bit more time spent on description, but, to my mind, usually offer much more of interest.

When I started posting listings, I wrote a paragraph and took a scan. Now, with the books-only or books-primarily sites, a spreadsheet works better. And I can see the future post-spreadsheet, it will be DATABASE. And XML. New things to learn how to operate, though I am fortunate to have a resourceful and responsive web host, Bluehost (cheap too) — in case you’re looking for a better one than the one you have. Depends on whether you are ready to delve “under the hood” with coding and other mysterious things like .htaccess, MySQL, Apache, PHP, and such.

So, my experience seems to be that streamlining isn’t itself streamlined but involves a good deal of effort and time to “make it so,” as Jean-Luc Picard used to say so glibly.

I actually was stumped over the behavior of a new folder, sought help from a forum and finally had to resort to the webhost to resolve it, which they did within hours. I still don’t quite know what happened and why, but it’s not happening anymore, so I’ll leave it at that for now, and plow ahead.

I’ve invested in two new shelves, had to stabilize another but was finally able to open the last of the boxes of Black Sparrow books, which I had designed and typeset years ago. They just fit on all the new shelving, and almost immediately, I scored a 50-volume set of Harvard Classics, the deluxe edition from 1909. So the quest for shelf space goes on…

I’m moving my attention toward book sites (more competition), but leaving about 700 titles on eBid, eCrater, and Bonanzle — good sites, but not focused on books. The new sites (for us) are Alibris and Biblio.com. Alibris does a pretty good job of promotion, Biblio is a consortium of used book dealers. Both require a lot more specification as to publisher, date, signed, ISBN, yadda yadda, so I have also shifted from my “masterlist” of descriptive paragraphs to a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. That should work well to move to XML.
And that brings up a question in my mind that one of your readers might have an opinion about: I progressed from HTML to XHTML some years ago, and this year have begun using PHP to slim down my coding (still a long way to go learning what PHP can do). But the next wave I can see crashing toward my shore is HTML5. Is that a better choice than XML, which seems suited for working with spreadsheets and databases. Databases will be in my future, certainly, for other projects, when I get back to publishing “enhanced ebooks” (lots of ideas for that, not enough time). So, for the geeks amongst us, which way the future?
My other recent news is the hire of a part-time person to do what I do, sorting, cataloging, describing. But also someone with imagination for marketing, which has always been a personal weakness of mine. It’s been years since I had employees (woops, contract labor!) and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the back-and-forth of ideas and news and fresh perspectives. It has energized me to get things done before she arrives the next time, so that’s a help too.
We’re discussing how to use eBay, which is the elephant in the Internet. I tried it a few years ago with a dynamite gift book that went nowhere during the Xmas season, and it wasn’t during a recession. So there’s another “teachable moment.”
I will make an effort on Fridays to post a new blog every week, in part to keep myself abreast of what I’ve been doing. I hope this documentation is of use to readers. I’m always happy to read your comments and suggestions.

With a thousand (yipes) titles online, I look around for ways to be more effective. Did the survey of other sites where books are sold, dug a little more into it, and then I started to see a pattern.

Looking from the “other side of the mirror,” as the buyer sees it, my list is not really as scattered as it seems to me. But it does fall into, or I can characterize it as, three age groups (all of which I feel, depending on my mood in the morning). One is college and soon after, interested in everything actual, starting with college textbooks (a market by itself. The next group, getting into the thirties and forties, people are building families, parenting, getting concerned about health and diet, self-improvement, sports, getting ahead in business, and such. After that, older folks settle in for more philosophy, history, collecting, politics, the investing side of business.

How do the sites stack up? Plugging in a few keywords or names, I created a very subjective list to suit my list. I rejected some (for the time being) for having TOO MANY of the kinds of titles I want to sell, and others for having TOO FEW to be considered; and some were TOO NEW to tell what their audience would be like.

So, on a trial basis, I will add two new ones for each age grouping: Craigslist and ePier for the younger set; Buyitsellit and Atomic Mall for the middle group; and Alsoshop and Biblio (with ePier thrown in) for the older set.

Is this an accurate analysis? Who knows, but it’s a starting place.

By now, I’ve noticed another matter; I’m not really happy with some of my early acquisitions, particularly romance and mystery novels. I had picked some favorites, but they haven’t moved. And there are outdated or small items I’d like to shed. One site that I know of, Bonanzle, offers “freebies” — in my case, buy anything and get another book for free. I’m weeding out paperbacks and anything that’s set at $5 or less — is it really worth my time plus the shipping cost to sell a $5 book?

I just went through my basic list and came up with about 150 titles to mark as freebies on Bonanzle. It would also help my home situation, as the books are climbing up the walls, not enough bookshelves (though a side effect has been to actually go through my other junk and move it — paint cans, electronics, and all the cardboard and shipping supplies. So many tapes — does anyone listen to tapes anymore? And what about all those reels of tape from my days when I had a radio program, and produced a serial, or worked with two others in experimental radio “humor.” I don’t even own a tape deck that can handle reels anymore. Choice: trash them and never look back, or spend time converting to mp3s? Hmm. I’ll sleep on that one. Might be able to sell the 28-part serial, or at least put it online. So, I was doing podcasts before the iPod.

Haven’t sold ANY books this week. What can I do to change that? Lower prices? I see that plenty of people stop by to take a look. Reduce the shipping to media mail; did that tonight, that will cut the costs.

And with my new snobbishness about purchasing, I’m running out of good sources. I’ve pilfered the thrift shops. Ah, but tomorrow morning is Garage Saling! Last week was a bust, but there’s always that next one, just a little further away that maybe has great stuff – that I can afford.

And then there’s my publishing. I have eleven titles I could be making into ebooks. Just want to get it right. Hardly making any progress in the fat PHP book I bought, but I need that for a good working website. Also XML, but I think that’s not such a big step from XHTML.

I don’t need these books, but someone does – at least that’s my pretext for nosing around thrift shops for the perfectly good hardcover books with dust jackets. Someone wanted them enough to pay full price once; the ideas or themes are still fresh (more or less). Why not share them with others, my Internet friends?

This week’s batch follows. I’m using four online selling sites, and considering dropping one and adding Amazon, which has the traffic, and they don’t have the listing fees that eBay does, just squeezes you out the back end (oops, don’t misinterpret), with selling fee, commission, and a third chisel.

OK, “new” titles (as listed on eBid):

Betty Crocker’s Microwave Cookbook.
NY: Random House, 1981. Hardcover, no dj. ISBN 0394517644. 8″x10.25″.288pp.
A treasury of recipes, with a section devoted to Creative Use of Your Microwave, menus with timetables and plan-aheads. Mouth-watering color photos. Excellent condition.
Fine.

Introduction to Information Systems. James A. O’Brien. Ninth Edition.
Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2000. Hardcover, no dj. International Edition. Highlighting in text. Mark on bottom. 566pp. 8.25″x10.25″.
Textbook of Information Systems in technology; applications for business and enterprise; development and management.
Very good.

NTC’s American Government. Roger LeRoy Miller. Second Edition.
Chicago IL: National Textbook Company, 1999. Hardcover, no dj. ISBN 0314141162. 855pp. 8.75″x10.25″. One mark inside front cover, otherwise unmarked.
Contents: Foundations, Citizenry, Politics, Legislative, Executive, Judicieal, Foreign Policy, State and Local governments.
Very good.

Preemies. The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies. Dana Wechsler Linden, Emma Trenti Paroli, Mia Wechsler Doron.
NY: Pocket Books, 2000. Trade paperback. ISBN 067103491X. 7.5″x9″. 578pp.
Realistic advice (two co-authors personally faced these challenges) starting with high-risk pregnancy and incubator time for the newborn before homecoming, right through the pre-school years. Can early labor be delayed? How does one monitor progress? Will your baby need surgery? Are there special precautions preparing your home? Will your baby be normal?
Very good.

Terri Sjodin. Salespeak. A ’90s Guide to Creating Memorable and Persuasive Presentations.
Arlington TX: Summit, 1995. Hardcover. ISBN 1565301927.
Persuasive public speaking is a skill, not a talent. “Passion is everything,” but coming across as believable falls into the skill category. The market realities mirror an evolution in selling strategies, such as listening. In speaking, what is the transaction, what is the risk you’re taking, or asking your audience to accept? Enhance your career in any business with your speaking ability; when you learn the tools of the trade, you gain credibility. Building a great presentation means being organized, not memorized. Track your own nonverbal communication, make your nerves work for you. Sjodin adds a section for women in sales.
As new.

Mary Renault. Fire from Heaven.
NY: Pantheon, 1969. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover, no dj. Library marks. 378pp. Map of the Greek world on endsheets.
Part of Renault’s trilogy on the life of Alexander the Great, this book covers his childhood — his parents’ competing for his loyalty, early ambition, challenges, his first kill, up to the death of his father.
Good-plus.

Mary Renault. The Bull from the Sea.
NY: Pantheon, 1962. First Edition. Hardcover, no dj. Library mark. 343pp.
Sequel to The King Must Die, The Bull from the Sea continues the story of Theseus through many years, a Greek hero at the end meeting a tragic end following the logic of his own destiny. Many episodes — wars, life with Hippolyta and afterward, Phaedra, Hippolytos.
Good-plus

Henriy Sienkiewicz. Quo Vadis.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1897. Popular Edition. Translated by Jeremiah Curtin (who dedicated the book to Auguste Comte). Front hinge loosened. Underlining on one page. Pen marks on front endsheet (Including “If this book tends to roam, Box its ears & send it home.”). Top and bottom of spine showing wear.
In the early years of the U.S. joining international copyright protection (1893), publishing of works from Europe had not ceased to be a competitive sport. Little, Brown decided to print Sienkiewicz’s handwritten letter to them affirming Little, Brown as the legitimate publisher: “Messieurs Little, Brown and Company: Gentlemen. Having concluded with you an agreement concerning my novels, translated by Jeremiah Curtin, and published by your house, I have the honour to declare, that the publication of these novels by other publishers would be done against my will and interest. As far, as I know, I cannot put a legal stop to their publication by others, but I think, that public opinion in your country might in this case take the place of law, since the feeling of comercial honour is so highly developed in the United States. Yours truly, Henryk Sienkiewicz.”
The story of Quo Vadis takes place during the reign of Nero, when the “conflict of moral ideas with the Roman Empire” gave impetus to the growth of Christianity in its first century. With 13 final pages for advertisements of novels by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translations by Jeremiah Curtin, and a final page for The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, Principal of the Boston Cooking School.
Very good.

Nursing2007 Drug Handbook.
Philadelphia PA: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2007. ISBN 1582557004. With CD. 1,428pp. 4.5″x7.75″.
32-page color photos to identify tablets and capsules. Sections include Anti-infectives; drugs for Cardiovascular; Central nervous system; Autonomic nervous system; Respiratory tract; Gastrointestinal tract; Hormones; for Fluid and electrolyte balance; hematologic; antineoplastics; Immunomodulators; Ophthalmic, otic, and nasal; Topical; Nutritional; Miscellaneous; plus appendices and index.
Fine.

Suzanne Somers. Breakthrough. Eight Steps to Wellness. Life-Altering Secrets from Today’s Cutting-Edge Doctors.
NY: Crown, 2008. ISBN 9781400053278. 450pp.
Preventive care, longevity medicine, bioidentical hormones —how to live a better life for a longer time. As our bodies change with age, hormonal imbalance can lead to signs of depression, sleeplessness, anxiety that don’t seem to have any specific cause. What is eroding our bodies and minds? What effect do the pills we take and the processed foods we eat really have? Doctors don’t learn all the answers in medical school; they learn how to deal with serious illness, but we can act before that happens. This is Suzanne Somers 17th book.
As new.

Rhoads Murphey. East Asia. A New History.
NY: Pearson Longman, 2007. Trade paperback. ISBN0321421418. 7.”x10″. Fourth Edition. A small amount of highlighting. 485pp.
Textbook, with plenty of references including websites. Each Asian culture has its own long history; with a mix of photos, stories, maps, chronologies, Murphey shows highlights and ordinary life to show the coherence within each country. From prehistory and the beginnings of the Shang Dynasty (contemporary with Moses and Egypt’s rise), through migrations and the development of distinct regions, interrelationships and isolation, up to the modern era.
Near fine.

A Brief Course in Business Statistics. William Mendenhall, Robert J. Beaver, Barbara M. Beaver.
Mason OH: Thomson Southwestern, 2001. Second Edition. 7.25″x9″. ISBN 0534381308. 694pp. Unmarked.
Textbook. Contents: Describing Sets of Data; Probability and Discrete Probability Distributions; Useful Discrete Probability Distributions; The Normal and Other Continuous Probability Distributions; Sampling Distributions; Estimation of Means and Proportions; Tests of Hypotheses for Means and Proportions; The Analysis of Variance; Quality Control; Linear Regression and Correlation; Multiple Regression Analysis; The Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit Test.
Very good.

Man, A General Psychology. Clarence J. Leuba.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. Ownership signature. ISBN 0252160111. Exposure to moisture, slight musty odor. 676pp.
“Man” (obviously printed before the feminist movement) is an introductory textbook of psychology. Contents: Basic Life Processes; Mechanisms of Adaptation; Individual and Group.
Good.

Commercial Chicken Production Manual. Mack O. North.
Westport CT: AVI Publishing, 1978. Second Edition. Hardcover, no dj. ISBN 0870552597. 693pp.
With a postcard from the author. Every aspect of chicken production, from biology to hatchery management to feed ingredients to poultry diseases and waste management.
Fine, unused.

Christopher Chant. Warfare of the 20th Century. Armed Conflicts Outside the Two World Wars.
Secaucus NJ: Chartwell Books, 1988. Hardcover. ISBN 1555212336. 9.25″x12″. Dust jacket has a two-inch tear. 256pp.
Coffeetable book. A comprehensive history with plenty of large b/w photos (because color photography is fairly recent, only a few photos are in color), and narratives of fifty-plus conflicts from the Boxer Rebellion to civil wars still raging. European, Middle Eastern, Asian, African wars both major and minor.
Fine, very good.

Gilbert Chase. America’s Music. From the Pilgrims to the Present.
NY: McGraw-Hill, 1966. 761pp. Revised Second Edition. Library marks. Spine is worn.
Textbook. “The most conspicuous feature of this revised edition is an entirely new chapter on the musical scene in the 1960s.…Its main thesis is that the American composer — in revolt against the cultural-commercial establishment ‘which had no place for us and for which we had no use’ (to quote an Angry Young Man of the new generation) —has taken matters into his own hands.” Surprisingly, Chase does not deal with popular music at all. This chapter concentrates on “serious” composers: the ONCE Group, Robert Ashley, Donald Scavarda, Roger Reynolds, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Larry Austin, Morton Subotnick, Meyeer Kupferman, Billy Jim Layton, Ralph Shapey, Seymour Shifrin, Chou Wen-chung, Halim El-Dabh, Mario Davidovsky, Aurelio de la Vega, Harvey Sollberger, Charles Wuorinen. Apparently the shift felt in the rest of the world also affected the world of composers.
Good-plus.

James Carville and Paul Begala. Buck Up, Suck Up… and Come Back When You Foul Up. 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room.
NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002. Hardcover. ISBN 0743224221.
Carville and Begala were effective campaign managers before their triumphant sweep in the Clinton campaign of 1992. Some strategems have been encapsulated in pithy slogans, as “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” but sometimes it boils down to “Work Your Ass Off.” Even Newt Gingrich, a formidable political opponent, says, “Sound strategy is sound strategy. Begala and Carville have collected a wealth of powerful insights in this book.”
As new.

Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. The Art of Happiness. A Handbook for Living.
NY: Riverhead Books, 1998. First Edition, 2nd printing.
“The very motion of our life is toward happiness,” says the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Laureate. In this book, he tells stories and shares meditations that can lead us to happiness. In conversation with Howard Cutler, he explores the facets of life to discern the inner peace. His Buddhist background and uncommon common sense bring out ways to deal with life’s struggles. He dedicates the book to you, the reader.
Fine/fine.

Joan Didion. The Year of Magical Thinking.
NY: Alfred A Knopf, 2005. ISBN 140004314X. 227pp.
A brutally honest account of dealing with the death of her husband and her only child, a daughter. “Life changes in the instant.”
As new, fine.

W.H. Hudson. Green Mansions. A Romance of the Tropical Forest.
NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1916. First American Edition, 5th Printing. Hardcover, no dj. With an Introduction by John Galsworthy. Ownership signature. Slight wear to top and bottom of spine.
A European falls in love with a strange girl of the jungle. Her poetic utterances give a mystical aura to the story of their unearthly romance.
Near fine.

Lawrence Durrell. Justine. A Novel.
NY: Dutton, 1957. First Edition, 12th Printing. Hardcover. Ownership signature.253pp. Dust jacket
The first, and perhaps the best, novel of Durrell’s Alexandrian Quartet series, which illuminates the cosmopolitan milieu of Alexandria, Egypt.
Very good, fair dust jacket.

Washington Irving (as Diedrich Knickerbocker). A History of New-York. from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty…
NY: G. P. Putnam and Company, 1855. Hardcover. Gift inscription dated 1856. Author’s Revised Edition, complete in one volume. Slight wear to top and bottom of spine. 454pp.

From cosmogony to the peopling of America, the settlement of Nieuwnederlandts, Wouter van Twiller, William the Testy, Peter Stuyvesant, Peter the Headstrong, and the decline and fall of the Dutch dynasty.
Very good.

W. Somerset Maugham. Then and Now. A Novel.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1946. Hardcover. Library mark. Ownership signature. Spine a bit sunned. 278pp.
An Italian romance with a sub-plot borrowed from Machiavelli’s play La Mandragola.
Very good.

Spent all day Monday correcting proofs for a book, well, magazine, for a long-standing client from the University. And this evening sorting out the books I picked up over the weekend. Can’t help it if garage sales have great picks, can I? Is this just a habit, or an addiction – can’t tell. Maybe it’s a phase, hmm?

Here are the titles – just in case you’re interested. I try not to pick up shlock, but some people read the genres, so I’ll save them some time looking for what they want. A few good art and decor books, and one of my faves, Shell Silverstein. I’d prefer that you find them on eBid (US), but they’re also listed on Bonanzle, eCrater and a new site, Blujay.

Medicine and Clinical Engineering.Bertil Jacobson, John G. Webster.
Susan Griffin. Woman and Nature. The Roaring Inside Her.
Sidney Sheldon. Nothing Lasts Forever.
Mary Stewart. The Hollow Hills. (story of King Arthur)
Jules Feiffer. Ackroyd.
John Fowles. Daniel Martin.
R.L. Delderfield. Give Us This Day. (England and Scotland)
Susan Love. Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book.
Shel Silverstein. Where the Sidewalk Ends. (the real first edition had “Gypsies” out to get you, but in this copy “Googies” replaces “Gypsies.” Must have been a PC issue.)
Shel Silverstein. A Light in the Attic. (for children? or adults?)
Christopher Morley. Kitty Foyle. 1939 First Edition, basis of a Ginger Rogers hit film.
Suzanne Slesin and Stafford Cliff. French Style. (houses, apartments)
Graham Rust. The Painted House.
Richard Pipes. Russia Under the Old Regime. (I love this stuff)
Mauritshuis Dutch Painting of the Golden Age.

(This was a traveling exhibition in the 1980s of the great Dutch painters).

William Saxon. For Love or Honor.

Cynthia Freeman. Illusions of Love.

Elizabeth Gage. A Glimpse of Stocking.

Eugenia Price. Bright Captivity.

A friend asked me how I was doing with making the transition from books to ebooks. It’s as simple as outputting a PDF, right? Yes, but I’m not ready to give away everything. It’s the messy money part that worries me. How do people trust me with their financial info? How do I secure the site from hackers, or protect my own account? Plus, I’m changing my page layout program, so some books will be “old” and some on the new system. Yadda yadda, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character used to say. OK, it’s on my agenda.

Now for the latest additions to my ever-growing stacks of books that I profess to want to get rid of. Here they are, in no particular order, and listed on four sites (besides eBid, eCrater.com, and Bonanzle, I’m trying a new one, Blujay. I’m listed as either BBooks or Histories and Mysteries) – see what you think:

USED COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS AND MANUALS:
Chemistry.The Central Science. Brown, LeMay, Bursten. (Package of 3)
Means Repair and Remodeling Estimating. Edward B. Wetherill.
College Algebra and Trigonometry Plus. Ronald D. Ferguson.
Architectural Drafting and Design. Jefferis and Madsen.

SIGNED BY AUTHOR OR COLLECTIBLE (I.E., OLD):
Arianna Stassnopoulos Huffington. Picasso. Creator and Destroyer. (Signed)
Anne Francis. Voices from Home. An Inner Journey. (Signed)
Joseph Liss. Radio’s Best Plays
Arch Oboler. Fourteen Radio Plays. Signed by Oboler.
Arch Oboler. Ivory Tower and Other Radio Plays.
Free World Theatre. Nineteen New Radio Plays. A Radio and Screen Writers Collaboration, with an Introduction by Thomas Mann. Edited by Arch Oboler and Stephen Longstreet.
The Bookman Anthology of Verse (1922).
Robert Bridges (Poet Laureate). October and Other Poems. With Occasional Verses on the War. (1920)
I.A. Richards. Science and Poetry.
Winston Churchill. A Far Country.
Prize Poems 1913-1929. With illustrations by Rockwell Kent.
Alice Hubbard. An American Bible. Foreword by Elbert Hubbard.
Elbert Hubbard. Hundred-Point Men.
Gardner D. Hiscox. Hydraulic Engineering. A Treatise on the Properties, Power, and Resources of Water for All Purposes.
Popular Piano Showstoppers. Intermediate Piano Solos.

MUSIC:
Alec Wilder. American Popular Song. The Great Innovators 1900-1950.
J. Cree Fischer. Piano Tuning. A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs.
Paul Hindemith. Elementary Training for Musicians. <
Kent Kennan. Counterpoint. Based on Eighteenth Century Practice.
Walter Piston. Harmony.

SPORTS:
Open Water Sport Diver Manual.
John Newman. Scuba Diving and Snorkeling for Dummies. PADI Open Water Diver Manual.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Chris Bohjalian. The Law of Similars.
Bernard DeVoto. The Year of Decision: 1846.
James A. Michener. Caravans.
A.C. Spectorsky. The College Years.
Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. Feel This Book. An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction (Yeah, sure). Signed by both authors.
John Updike. Rabbit Redux.
Alan W. Watts. The Way of Zen.
Chaim Potok. In the Beginning.
H.L. Mencken. The American Language. An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States.
L.R. Lind, ed. Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations.
Linda Ellerbee. “And So It Goes.” Adventures in Television.
Nancy Friday. Jealousy.
Suze Orman. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke.
Vincent Bugliosi. Till Death Us Do Part. A True Murder Mystery. With Ken Hurwitz.

Whew.

As of this evening, you can find these titles, mostly how-to books and two college survey textbooks, on eBid:

Biology. Concepts and Connections. Campbell, Reece, Mitchell, Taylor.

Principles of Modern Chemistry. Oxtoby, Gillis, Nachtrieb.

The House Book. Terence Conran.

Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two. A complete illustrated directory of German battle tanks, armoured cars, self-propelled guns, and semi-tracked vehicles 1933-1945.

Masters and Johnson. Human Sexual Response.

Chapman Piloting. Seamanship and Small Boat Handling. Elbert S. Maloney.

McCall’s Book of Afghans.

The Dancer’s Book of Ballet Crafts. (Dancewear, Accessories, and Keepsakes)

Quilting, Patchwork, and Appliqué.

Pretty miscellaneous, but I pick up what I can, trying to salvage what we know for the future.

One thing I learned from being a writer and then an editor — you can make things up all you want, and it might be beautiful, even fashionable. But the things that are important for us to carry on come from what we know. Really know. It might be a technique in choosing the right wood for a job, it might be a dark secret hard to admit even to yourself but that nevertheless is true.

As an editor, starting out with no idea of what I wanted, I settled on this criterion: What is the writer trying to do, and did they accomplish it. Sometimes I don’t get past trying to figure out the first part. As time went on, I determined that most of the writers whose material I saw weren’t trying to do much of anything at all — but it always delighted me to find the occasional surprise. Maybe that’s what it came down to, after reviewing hundreds upon hundreds of MSS, I kept looking forward to the possibility of being surprised.

Picked up a few this Friday, and looking forward to Saturday morning garage sales, they’re a big thing in this town. Gets me out and around, snooping in other people’s stuff, I love it (don’t you?).

These are posted on eBid, Bonanzle and eCrater.com:
Inside Today’s Home, 1986.
Basic Wiring. Time-Life, 1979.
Microsoft Frontpage 98 Fast and Easy, 1998.
Norman Mailer, Ancient Evenings, 1983. First Edition.

OK, so Mailer isn’t a how-to, well, not in the usual sense. For a writer(wannabe), I’d say he is!

Do I have a word for today? How about “fiddlesticks” which presumably came from a derogatory remark about violin bows. Do we need it, or is it something only your grandma would say?

Books sold in August: Don’t Panic: Procrastinator’s Guide to Writing an Effective Term Paper (more copies available); John Fante Letters (signed); Christopher DeNoon, Posters of the WPA (a terrific resource). Also sent out Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the Bandanna Books modernized version with Orson Welles drawings, to an artist who might be interested in helping create a similar illustrated edition

On an unrelated issue, I was chosen to be Beta tester for Blue Mars, a fancy-shmancy 3D world, but I was unable to open the client in my virtual Windows program 8=( And I haven’t made much progress with the Trial of Socrates in Second Life — any volunteers for acting or coding? I’m hoping to get an avatar to play the Socrates role, perhaps another for Crito — so the show can go on indefinitely without wearing people out. More on that later.

Here are the new arrivals, a number of science and math textbooks. I hope they’re still of use.

• Steven S. Zumdahl. Chemical Principles.
• Hugh D. Young and Roger A. Freedman. University Physics, Volume One, and Volume Two.
• Gilbert M. Masters. Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Science.
• Jerrold E. Marsden, Anthony J. Tromba, Alan Weinstein. Basic Multivariable Calculus.
• Roland E. Larson, Robert P. Hostetler, Bruce H. Edwards. Calculus with Analytic Geometry.
• Frank P. Incropera and David P. DeWitt. Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer.
• Deborah Hughes-Hallett, Andrew M. Gleason et al. Calculus
  and the companion volume Student Solutions Manual to Accompany Calculus.
• Yunus A. Cengel and Michael A. Boles. Thermodynamics. An Engineering Approach. Third Edition.
• Curtis F. Gerald and Patrick O. Wheatley. Applied Numerical Analysis.

Also some self-help, a horse book, and a couple of mystery novels by women authors at the top of the list at sbbookauction.com.
I’m up to 640 titles now, and trying two other sites to see what works in terms of selling. I can’t remember anyone in my family that was in the “selling racket,” so I’m feeling my way. And, of course, the Internet has its own unwritten rules.