There's a Word For That, But I Don't Know It

From "Shelf Awareness", an insider booksellers' thing:

Speaking of the Strand, the New Yorker offers many column inches in its coverage of the store's Books-by-the-Foot service, begun in 1986 to provide "ready-made libraries for private homes, stores, and movie sets."

A current client: the upcoming Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The books, for Indy's personal collection, are to cover "paleontology, marine biology, and pre-Columbian society. They had to be in muted colors and predate 1957."

"People have gotten so character-specific nowadays," Jenny McKibben, a manager at the store, told the New Yorker. "It can't just be color anymore. With high-def, they can just freeze the film and say, 'Oh, that's so inappropriate.' "

The store offers 18 basic library styles, for purchase or rent. The random hardcover bargain books version goes for $10 per foot of shelf space. For $30, clients can customize the color. For $75, they can get a "leather-looking" library.

"Character specific", cry me a freaken river- buy your library for *you*, not to match your couch.

Wow. I didn't realise I was going on 11 years of hating the Strand bookstore for their anti-bookish behaviour. True, I was leery of them when I saw an interview with one of their buyers some 8 years ago about how they will often find valuable things stuck between the pages of books, or discover that they'd drastically underpaid someone for their used books, and not contact the seller.

In the same interview, they did cover the Books By The Foot sales, admitting that they do often break up sets of books.

There's a lot wrong with this.

One- Your library is supposed to reflect you- your tastes, your passions, your hates (I'm looking at you, first edition volume of Stan Rice "poetry"). It is something which is built over the years- at which you can look and maybe chuckle at your youthful indescretions (ahm, I'm looking at you, "A Fine Old Conflict"), or rediscover a half-forgotten gem, getting even more out of it now that you have a better Understanding Of Life than you did some twenty years ago. In other words, it is a part of what you are made of.

Two- The breaking up of sets is Taboo Number One of honest booksellers. Now, if you happen to only find a volume or two of a set (thanks in part to The Strand's having broken it?), that's one thing. But if you have a set (no matter how pretty), you keep it intact. It is a single being. It travels together. Unity.

Three- I just hate them. No, wait, let me make this into a valid point. I do not appreciate their distict lack of respect for books. That they are willing to view them as "set peices", as mere objects regardless of the ideas contained therein leads me to believe they are philistines. No ofence to actual Philistines- which I know there are, because I read it in a book which I chose with care.

Actual Philistines (according to my ex-Rabbi, that would be us, the remaining ethnic Jews) like books. We are also known as "People of The Book" (I think you get to pick *which* book of which you are nowadays. I digress.)

So a better word might be "Uncouth barbarians who would destroy civilization if it meant a quick buck".

Here's hoping...

I have a new book- Parenting Beyond Belief- On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, edited by Dale McGowan (American Management Association, paperback, $17.95)


I ordered this book as soon as I heard it was to be released. Odd publisher, but I should not be too surprised that a smaller pub is more willing to put it out than, say, Random House. Contributors include Julia Sweeney (of SNL fame), Penn Jillette, and Richard Dawkins. Forward by Michael Shermer (hmm...that one should be interesting).

Like many parents of little to no faith, I have been a bit disappointed with the lack of non-god-based books on child-rearing vis a vis ethics. We read a lot in my house, and there are a lot of fantasy books in our collections (kid and grown-up), but anything on Why To Be Nice has seemed very Jesusy/Mosesy/Buddha-y. The books aimed at parents specifically have been quite Christian, going by the shelves at Powell's (where there is a huge section of Christian Parenting books). Supply and demand, I know, but my wee demand was left supply-less until this one. (I hope, anyway.)

This is this week's reading.