McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

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Where did our small town go?

August 23, 2012 /

Crime in Broken Arrow. I know it’s out there, having been victimized myself. But bound and gagged at gunpoint, herded to the back of the store while the rest of the gang bags up the goods?

That isn’t the small town BA that I’m familiar with.

My sympathies to the folks at Radio Shack on South Elm who had to undergo such an ordeal Wednesday night. Thankfully, there was no tragic outcome.

The way the police tell it, an employee – who wasn’t working at the time – visited the store in the evening, only to find people inside, obviously in the middle of a robbery. It was shortly before nine o’clock at the Elm store south of 111th Street.

The timely arrival of that staff member and the quick response of the police had the bandits scattering out the front and back doors, while others jumped in a vehicle and sped away.

One of the runners was smart enough to recognize the futility of continuing, and stopped. He dropped his gun, took off his ski mask, and gave himself up. Another jumped into the backyard of a nearby residence and tried to make himself invisible. The police dog would have none of it. The young man was rooted out and arrested.

The other two were taken into custody shortly afterward in Tulsa.

They must have imagined themselves as big-time crooks, carrying guns and ski masks, and wearing body armor – as though anticipating a shootout. The four ranged in age from 18 to 23. They are in for some life-highlights over the course of the near future. The charges sound pretty serious: armed robbery, wearing a mask during the commission of a felony (I had not heard of that one before…), kidnapping, wearing body armor in the commission of a felony (another one they don’t mention on CSI), larceny of an automobile, and conspiracy.

Enough complaints there to keep several attorneys busy for some time, no doubt.

I remember a robbery in Oklahoma City years ago where the employees were rounded up and moved to a walk-in cooler. That event ended badly. There have been several robberies at gunpoint since that time in Tulsa that had similar outcomes.

Given that our country seems to have been given over to violence and mayhem, it’s fortunate that this criminal activity ended the way it did. Kudos to the employee for his serendipitous timing and alert reaction – and to the BA police for quickly rounding up the bad guys.

Glue and paper and patience.

August 16, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Well! These books are back together! The book doctor is pleased to report the patients have come through surgery with no ill-effects.

Anyone who saw the shelves in the old store could easily see that I’m no carpenter. The inventory was displayed just fine, but the bookcases were nothing to look at, I’ll admit. Most of my life I’ve constructed things with words rather than my hands. Maybe that’s why I feel proud at finishing this sort of project.

There are a few nervous moments for me, repairing books like these. Both date almost to the colonial era. I’d hate for them to have survived so long just to have me ruin them. Of course, the other side of their age and survival is they both appeared to have been dragged behind covered wagons to end up in Broken Arrow.

At this point, I’ve had a little more experience doctorin’ books than building bookcases but still consider myself a mere “practical” bookbinder. The leather and marbled paper book in the picture is as close as I get to fine binding. Those folks doing the gilt inlays and embossed stamping are out of my league.

The book in the image with the black-colored spine was published in MDCCXCII – or 1792 for the non-Roman-numeral readers among us. (I looked it up to be certain…) You can click on any of the images for a bigger view of the type of printing that was produced two hundred years ago. Both have that antique flavor, being old enough to have been in the hands of our country’s founding fathers.

The larger of the two books was in such sad shape that it lacked the original materials covering the front and back.

I was able to re-use the boards, which were sort of odd shaped and round-cornered from years of handling. Even recovered they remain somewhat out-of-square, but I am pleased at the way the leather and marbled paper turned out.

The leather at the spine and corners was taken from a hide purchased from a fine-leather dealer in Tulsa. The marbled paper came from Israel, where an artisan makes each sheet individually. It’s an art form that has been saved, thankfully, but the sheets are somewhat pricey compared to stock paper.

When I was prepping the book, I could see the old twine cords that the original binder used to attach the front and back covers to the pages. His old linen stitching holding the book block together was pretty much intact. (A volume I’m working on currently had to be hand-sewn back together…)

The smaller book did not have a cover at all. I had to custom fit some boards to the pages and attached a cloth binding rather than leather and paper. It’s an early, early novella called Atala that was first published in 1801. The author, François-René de Chateaubriand, was inspired by his travels to North America. The little book is an 1817 translation that was published in London. Somehow, hand-sized volume found its way to what was Indian Territory and wilderness, back then.

Next time, I’ll try to remember to take a picture to show the state of the book when it comes in for the doctor’s visit. As for these two, I won’t profess them to be good as new, but with a little care they should hold up for another hundred years or so.

Filling the bill.

August 11, 2012 /

THAT’S the one I’m looking for!

Those are words that a bookseller loves to hear. Someone stopping in to look for a specific title – something written years ago – and, against the odds finding it on the shelf. There are so, so many titles.

I’ve been around books all my life, but before getting into the business of selling books, I had no idea that so many authors had written so many books. Not having been a reader of series fiction in my younger years, I naively thought that an author wrote a book or two and then rested on their laurels. (I understand that’s the part of the anatomy that grows larger from big royalty checks and sitting at the keyboard. I could be wrong.)

It turns out, there are some writers that must be writing twenty and thirty hours a day to crank out so many titles. James Patterson, for one.

To keep ALL those books in stock would take a store the size of Texas and an army of employees to keep them organized and alphabetized. Honestly – no store can stock all the books. No can do.

So, it is somewhat of a rarity when an older title is on the shelf just waiting for its new owner. We’re talking about those books that even the big-boy Barnes & Noble has to special order (and charge full cover price for…).

There are some categories that I have a pretty good shot at fulfilling a request. American and English literature, for example. I try to keep the classics in stock, even to the point of ordering them in new to have copies on the shelf. For genre fiction like suspense, mystery, and fantasy – it is just impossible. Even in the currently popular George R.R. Martin series “Game of Thrones” that has been brought to life on Showtime, there are more titles than I can stock in new copies.

This afternoon, I had several satisfying moments. In fact, the majority of the requests today were in stock, and available in nice clean used copies that saved the buyers a little money.

I like that.

Until the store grows to the size of Texas I’ll just take pride in those occasions where my selection of books has satisfied a specific need.

Maybe I’ll brush up on my fortune telling to better know what to stock.

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