These stories are from book ‘want lists’ mailed to subscribers mostly in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Books had always been an integral part of my father’s life, and shortly after returning to the U.S. from WWII, he became a used-book seller. Amongst his many other enterprises this was the most consistent applied, although the shape and conduct of the business changed over the course of many decades. Operations were carried mostly out of our own house, though various storefront representations survived until the early 1980s; sometimes these were even located on separate premises. In the late ’80s, the business changed more to a mail-order model. He would drop small stacks of postcards off at mainstream bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and B. Dalton. When someone came in looking for something that was out-of-print, they could fill out the card and mail it to my dad. He might have the book himself, or he might know, or could find, another dealer that did.
Thus, every few weeks or so, he would compile a list of books that were wanted on his part, and mail the list out to a network of fellow dealers. As with his movie programmes, this publication was usually designed to include a page or two of his own musings, from reminscences of his childhood to the current day’s politics (and this being primarily in the Clinton years, there was plenty of political fun to be had).
Eventually the rise of the internet, with ABE Books and Amazon, eliminated the need for these wantlists; and standard forms and processes being what they were, even the very possibility of appending such content was out of the question. I suppose that in some sense, this type of writing is somewhat akin to ‘blogging’, and perhaps he might have taken to that mode at some point. But as the want lists were addressed to a small and captive audience, I find there is something a little more charming (or perhaps a little less egotistical) in these stories than in today’s typical blog: this might have been just a routine business method between him and his subscribers, but this was his way of bringing some personality and entertainment into it.
Many thanks to Jim Johnson and Eileen Talamentez — fellow bookdealers and one-time subscribers of my father’s — who recently contacted me (Thanksgiving 2011) and rekindled the idea of posting these stories online. Eileen even took the trouble to retype one of the stories and republish it in her own newsletter. Following this came a small flurry of appreciative comments, a good kick in the tochis for me to at least start the effort. Herein therefore are the first few stories, the one that Eileen so heroically retyped (Sam’s Bookstore – Part 2), and several others that I had scanned in and converted back to text some time ago.
In contrast to the New Strand and Bandbox programmes, the want lists are much more difficult to organise. Very few of them are dated with any certainty and most have serial numbers or names that were used more than once (for example, I have three different, unrelated lists named ‘A’, and three named ‘X’). At some point, I hope to get a more-or-less comprehensive list together. If you have any old want lists and can provide identifying details, please contact me. In the meantime, the list below is in no particular order.