i have been staying outside minneapolis more and more in recent years (i am from philly and am there when not in mn.
i've been pleasantly surprised with the number of books in the hb/noir field found in the philly library system. but i have been tremendously pleased to find many in the local mn library system that were not in the philly one.
currently i have on hold: jack o'connell's 'wireless'', joe gores' 'interface', jim nisbet's 'dark companion' and kent anderson's 'night dogs'.
these were not only not available in philly's library, but some not even easy to find for purchase, even used, tho i cannot afford to purchase books the way i used to anyway.
also, minneapolis has at least 2 crime/mystery book stores that i've found so far, whereas philly has one that seems to be hanging on by a thread so far and is mainly used books, not that they aren't what i usually end up purchasing these days. but the selection is smaller.
i found new copies of marlowe's 'the name of the game is death' (pb) and nisbet's 'the damned don't die' (original title 'the gourmet') and used copies of kent harrington's 'dark ride' and 'dia de los muertos' at one store in mpls so far.
so this is good news for me, at the same time as i read the posts about the difficulties in getting published, making any money writing, etc, which certainly bums me out (and i'm only a reader).
thanks to the writers, past, present and future. and of course to any and all who post here and similar places, who have turned me on to so many of these great books.
--- On Fri, 11/13/09, jacquesdebierue <jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: jacquesdebierue <jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: state of NY publishing
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, November 13, 2009, 5:36 PM
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "gsp.schoo@..." <gsp.schoo@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for this. However, the salivating desire of corporations for short term profit without regard for longer term consequences is, for me, so evidently the inability to resist an overwhelming wave that I can't take your insight as a correction.
>
We should talk a bit about why the "wave" (many waves, actually) is perceived to be overwhelming. Is it that the organized life is such that it kills off any other way of life, in effect makes it inviable? For an obvious example, giving the streets to cars in effect precludes people from walking on them. So it is a disabling technology.
We should think about disabling technologies. With an ax, you can cut wood and warm yourself. With twenty intermediaries feeding into a "warming system" you are, as the saying goes, fucked.
The great virtue of the book is that it is an enabling technology, paticularly with public libraries. The marginalized people will not be buying Kindles or dowloading books from Amazon. If libraries close, they simply won't have access to books.
By the way, I consider this discussion to be right on topic, so no apologies for participating by anybody, please!
Best,
mrt
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