akhtar@ccvaxa.UUCP (09/24/85)
A few comments:
i) I'm also disgusted with the price raise. Patronize your local library
and used bookstore. Libraries round here can get you almost any book
you want - within reason.
ii) Crown books - well maybe they do save you money for a few things, but
try going in there and ordering something slightly obscure. I would
expect that you'll not get very far. Crown 'bookstores' serve a useful
function, but please don't mistake them for real bookstores.wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (09/27/85)
And if you can't find an independent bookstore in your area, the nearest one is as close as your mailbox. Some advertise in magazines like Science Fiction Chronicle or Locus. Some will come to you -- if you go to a convention, the attendance list might be sold to booksellers, who will send you a catalog. Many send catalogs monthly or bi-monthly listing new books received in stock, now and then going through older books, used and unused, laying around the store. Unlike Publisher's Clearing House, though, if you don't order something within five or six catalogs, they usually will stop sending them unless you send a postcard indicating interest or send a couple dollars for postage. If they don't have what you want, and it's still in print, they'll order it for you. Some will maintain lists of books their customers are looking for, keeping an eye open for them when buying used books. Many will give little mini-reviews of books they or their friends have read. (And if it's a real dog, Mark Zeising will tell you so.) Note that some booksellers (David Aronovitz, for example) are mostly trying to sell to collectors, and their prices will tend to run higher than others'. If you just have to have a Gnome Press edition of something this month, they're a good place to look, but if you just want any old version of *Nine Hundred Grandmothers* you'd be better off ordering from one of the more general-purpose guys. (But *nobody* has John Collier books.) *Plug Time* The places I've done business with have all been pretty good. Mark Zeising in Willimantic, CN, runs a nice business and is our favorite. He keeps a good stock of new books in and cycles through his backlist once or twice a year. His catalogs are fun to read. Robert and Phyllis Weinberg in Chicago (Oak Park?) have a good selection of fantasy, horror, Sherlockiana, mystery, old pulps, and comics, as well as SF. The backlist is a little weaker, but they put a trivia question in every catalog (and award a prize to the first order with the correct answer). David Aronovitz in Flint, MI, deals mostly in first and rare editions. Useful to know if you decide to turn collector. You can also get things like third edition hardback Cabell for reasonable prices. Pandora's Books in Neche, ND, sent me a catalog yesterday for the first time. They had semi-reasonable prices on hardbacks, but paperbacks were kind of high. Edward R. Hamilton (somewhere in CN) is like a one-man Publisher's Central Bureau, with about the same prices and a little (but not much) more esoteric stock. I've also had a few catalogs from a place in England, but have forgotten the name. Never ordered from them, though, because I was too lazy to get around to getting an international money order. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat