McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: used books (Page 115 of 128)

Keeping up with the Updates

October 18, 2012 /

Something made me think about it, and when I did, I realized that I had a menu posted on the website that had not been updated.

Not in a good while.

Looking it over before I updated, I could see good intentions everywhere with a heaping spoon-full of impracticality. A friend had told me after looking over an early version of the menu that I needed to remember that I was running a book store that sold food, not a restaurant with some books around. He was right.

That version of the menu was pared down to the one that I just updated. As it turned out, when the waiter, the cook, the cashier, and the dishwasher are all the same person – it has to be a limited selection of items that can be easily presented. Oh yeah – it helps if they taste good.

I’ve mentioned before that things are ever changing, which shouldn’t be viewed as a negative. It keeps things fresh and edgy. Fresh I like. Edgy? I don’t know, but sometimes it gets the adrenaline started and that can be a good thing too.

It has been fun for me serving lunch, even if it gets a little hectic at times. Those of you who have allowed me to serve you lunch, I appreciate the opportunity – and hope you’ll be back soon!

A Book from a Blog: Customer quotes.

October 15, 2012 /

Don’t get the wrong idea… there are plenty of ultra-literate, engagingly-conversational customers popping in the shop. Yakker that I am, and a true lover of books, I’m always happy to talk about authors and their works.

But…there are some people who come in and don’t quite know what to think. As someone who grew up around books, this group was a surprise to me, and apparently, there are others in book shops who have been engaged in conversations similar to some I’ve had. In fact, a woman named Jen Campbell has just published a collection of off-the-wall type remarks and questions posed to her during her years as a bookseller.

Her dust jacket material has some doozies:

“Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?” asked one customer, while another wondered “Did Charles Dickens ever write anything fun?” Someone in her store approached her and said, “I’ve forgotten my glasses, can you read me the first chapter?”

I’ve heard variations of those, but – I’ll admit – I’ve never faced this one:

“Excuse me . . . is this book edible?”

That one had me wondering if the book was leather-bound and perhaps heading for a soup pot. It’s one of Campbell’s collection called “Weird Things Customers Say in Book Stores,” just released from Overlook publishers. At 144 pages, it’s apparent that Campbell has been collecting conversations for a time.

When I opened the shop, it was an eye-opener to realize that there are lots of people who not only don’t enjoy books, but are seemingly unsettled to be around them. A gentleman once opened the door and when he stepped over the threshold, he halted his entry so fast that whiplash might have been an issue.

“Ohhhh, books…” he mumbled, and backed himself out the door as though the shelves had been filled with writhing rattlesnakes.

“How does this work?” one woman asked me after walking in and looking from floor to ceiling. “These are books, aren’t they? Do you rent ‘em out or what?” (The name on the front door is posted as “McHuston Booksellers,” but then not everyone reads the signs…)

My favorite and most repeated anecdote came from an older man who walked in and threw his hands on his hips as he looked around, clearly finding himself amidst unfamiliar surroundings.

“Books, huh?” he mused. “You know I used to have a friend who knew someone who liked to read.”

Good Book! Good Gosh!

October 4, 2012 /

Salvation is a lot more expensive than it used to be!

One of the online book sales consortiums releases its priciest sales once a month, and for September, the Good Book brought a heavenly price for the seller. The hand-tooled bible is old enough that Christopher Columbus could have taken it along on his voyage to the new world.

Printed in 1491, the so-called “Poor Man’s Bible” sold through American Book Exchange for $26,200. Obviously, it isn’t a poor man’s bible any longer, but at the time of its printing, this volume was among the first published in a much smaller and less ornate binding – more affordable for the common man.

Several Bibles made the top 10 of ABE’s most expensive books sold, but the top fiction honors went to a first edition copy of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” The 19th century volume brought $25,000 in a private sale.

Nowhere near that price, but an interesting book just the same is an 1883 German language bible we have in the shop currently with a binding that looks like it was carved from the trunk of an oak tree. The heavy volume is filled with beautiful engravings as seen in the accompanying image.

Some of the earliest Bibles printed in America were done in Western Pennsylvania, where German immigrants settled at the invitation of William Penn. Publishers in the region continued to print in the German language to accommodate the large settlements in Chester and Lancaster counties that still relied on their native tongue. Obviously, the use of German was prevalent enough to require the publishing of German language books well after the Civil War.

Somehow, one of the Good Books from that area found its way to Indian Territory, and eventually Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where it proudly sits anticipating its 130th birthday.

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