Abandon Hope...

I’ve worked with books for quite awhile now and there are things about writing, publishing, selling, collecting and buying books that, over time, become noteworthy and particular. Not all of these things are good. In fact, most of them are particularly irritating, and yet they are considered par for the course.

For the last couple of years, my colleagues and I have begun collecting instances of these irritants and, in a spirit of whimsy, have allocated the perpetrators of these annoyances to various levels of a fictive Hell, much like the one that Dante invented. We’ve gathered enough material between us that, rather than let it all fade away, I’ve decided to give it its own blog-space. Perhaps some of these situations will resonate with other booksellers, as well as those working with books in other capacities.

However, it’s not sufficient, I feel, to just poke fun at the day-to-day annoyances of book work, without at least trying to rectify some of the issues. Books, from this very moment, will only become rarer, increasingly scarce commodities, as technology shifts and moves. The ones that are left should be looked after and maintained, and discussions of how to do that should form part of this narrative also.

This will, therefore, be a place where you can go to learn what bothers your local bookdealers and also to learn how you can better look after the books that you own, possibly with an eye to capitalising on their re-sale at a later date.

Above all, since this started as an amusing exercise to pass time at work, I will try to make this as fun as possible.

C’mon in...