The American Ambulance 1900-2002: An Illustrated History.

The American Ambulance 1900-2002: An Illustrated History by Walter M.P. McCall.  Paperback book published 2002.

“Books of interest and interesting books.”  That’s my subtitle.  Recently I’ve had a few people compliment me on my excellent selection of titles (yes, this is true and yes, more than one person has said this).  All I can say is... wait until they see this one. 

We’ve all heard of the train spotter, the automotive enthusiast, the stationary engine enthusiast and even tractor enthusiasts.  Ambulances are something new to me… but hey it’s a big world and I can see the fascination and I can even sort of see the passion*.  This form of transport plays an important role in society and has done so for a considerable amount of time.  This book looks at post 1900 ambulances and begins with some horse and carts and then moves pretty quickly into the automobile as preferred form of emergency transport.  It appears to be fairly comprehensive in its scope… this is of course a laymans opinion (mine) and there is possibly a definitive text on the subject that includes more detail than my uninitiated mind can even begin to imagine.  For now though, we are looking only at this book and I think this one is comprehensive.  There is only a small amount of text and the rest of the book is made up of excellent black and white photographs, many of which appear to be historical.  The publisher proudly states “Preserving History through the Publication of Notable Photographic Archives.  Printed in China.”

Some of these ambulances look so fantastic that I’m sure it was a pleasure to be picked up by them… to tell you the truth, I think I would rather have had emergency transport in the 1950s or 1960s than today.  These cars look amazing.

So how big is the interest in historical Ambulances? … I have no idea.  Hopefully anyone chasing this sort of book, will have their feelers out there scanning the www.    

*Sort of.

The Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

The Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, edited by Alessandro Bongioanni and Maria Sole Croce.  Paperback book published by The American University in Cairo Press 2001, 632 pages.

At the moment, here in Victoria, there is a bit of Egyptological mania going on… no, we aren’t building pyramids and no, we aren’t removing peoples brains through their noses …at least, not that I’m aware of.  The Melbourne Museum (it’s in Melbourne… and it’s a museum), has been lucky enough to exhibit the exhibition entitled “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs”.  I think this is what is known as a blockbuster exhibition.  Everyone’s going.  Some of my family went the other day and even with prebooked tickets they waited in line for more than an hour to get in… I think this gives you an idea on how popular this exhibition is.

So I think now is a good time to try and sell this guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.  Now is when Egypt fever is happening… six months from now it will be a distant memory… a bit like ancient Egypt.  Sure, this guide book is not going to be much help here in Melbourne, Victoria… at least, I don’t think they brought EVERYTHING over… but it should get all those Tutankhamun fans hyped and ready for the big event.  The excellent photographs and brief descriptions, are also perfect if you would rather sit at home and avoid the demonstrations, riots and general unrest (… that’s in Egypt… not Melbourne…), or the crowds (in Melbourne).  Of course anyone buying this book could actually use it in Cairo as intended.  Apparently if you do go to the Museum (not the one in Melbourne) not much is labeled in English and this guide book is the thing you want in your hand when looking at very dead people and their stuff. 

Anyway, I’ve written about this now because it’s topical here at the moment.  Recently I’ve sold a number of books on this subject.  Over the past 2 years I’ve become a little more selective in my ancient history purchases as this subject doesn’t seem to sell as well as I think I should.  Maybe now with all this interest and hype, things will change.

Production and Packaging of Non Carbonated Fruit Juices and Fruit Beverages

Production and Packaging of Non Carbonated Fruit Juices and Fruit Beverages, edited by P.R. Ashurst.  Hardcover book published 1999.

“This book reviews the fruit juice and fruit beverage industry (including nectars) from grower to distributor, including fruit handling and processing, chemistry and characterization, analysis, quality control, nutritional value and packaging.”

This is another one those books that I got very excited about when I found it.  It’s a title that just screams out, “I am so specific, that anyone interested in this subject (?) just has to buy me”.  Seriously, I stood there holding it thinking to myself there can’t be many titles looking at Non Carbonated Fruit Juices… there might be a few articles here and there, probably in food technology magazines or beverage journals but another whole book… Well, possibly, but like this title, I reckon any others will also be a little scarce.  The chapters have bibliographies and/or references and/or further reading, at the end of them and they all pretty much reference magazines and journals (as I suspected).  The chapter entitled “Authentication of Orange Juice” has 7 pages of it… this book is serious stuff… pulp fiction it ain’t. 

So who wants this juicy title?  (Now available through Books &Collectibles)

John Pawson

John Pawson.  Paperback book published by Gustavo Gilli 1992.

I’ve now had this book for a few years.  I originally decided, after a failed ebay attempt, that rather than selling the book cheap to another book dealer, I would keep it for the future.  What that future would be, I had no idea at the time… but here we are and it’s now the future.  The reason I wanted to keep the book, was that I felt that it was something special and those of you who know John Pawsons work will know what I’m talking about.  In other words, I like the book.

Wikipedia:

“John Pawson (born 6 May 1949) is a British designer associated with the minimalist aesthetic.”

There is a little bit more information in Wiki but not much… it’s very minimal.  Even the title of this book is… minimal.  When I found this book I had no idea who this guy was, my knowledge was… minimal.  I liked the cover… it’s minimal, and you know “you can always tell a book by it’s cover”… or something like that….  It’s got great photographs and illustrations of… minimal designs. 

The book has a gift inscription signed by “John”.  Not uncommon for his books, but still a nice touch.  The www lists the book as worth a bit… which is another reason I didn’t want to sell it off cheap.  I’ve now listed the book on Books & Collectibles… lets face it, it has more of a chance of selling there, than in a box under my desk where the chance of selling it are… minimal.

So since my failed ebay attempt those few years ago, I do wonder if there is much interest in John Pawson now… or is interest…

Clunes Booktown final roundup.

Hello everybody.  It’s over.  Clunes Booktown 2011 has finally passed. 

The Sunday ended up being exactly as I (and others) theorized… that is, more people visited on the Sunday than in previous years due to the better weather and possibly to meet and hear some of the guest speakers.  My sales figures overall were 35% up on last year (2010) which was down by 20% on the year before (2009).  This is great news (the 35% up, not the 20% down).  I sold 1/3 of my stock.

I didn’t manage to take many photos in the end.  I visited some other book dealers that I know and asked if I could take a photo and some said yes, but a few did not want themselves in the photos.  This happened more than once… I guess we Booksellers are the quiet types who don’t like the attention… or we think the camera will steal our souls… not sure, but in their defence I will add that there are no photos of me here either.

Firstly, this is Jon from Revolve Records in Sydney… yes they sell books as well.  This is the second year that he has had the stall next to me and I’m looking forward to being his neighbour again next year.  A very agreeable person.  He had a number of trestle tables full of $2 books… this is a picture of him on his way to putting more $2 books on the trestles.  Your probably thinking how cheap this is.  Well the truth is that the books he was selling for $2 were not books that I would even begin to look at (they didn’t meet the “of interest” criteria)… I think most people were being ripped off at $2… but that’s just my opinion and the truth is that they sold very well, probably because they were $2 and not because they were any good.  He had a heap of great books ("of interest") at heftier prices as well. 

This is a few photographs of Sainbury’s stall.  Unfortunately it doesn’t really give a good idea of what they had.  I can tell you that they also had a trestle table outside on the street with some competitive pricing (this means cheap).  From what I can gather, they were happy with the weekend sales.

Book Fossiker is owned and run by Joan Rogers who also sells on line and also lives here in Clunes.  She was very helpful in giving me some advice and tips when I was setting up my Books & Collectibles account.  She had some lovely books.  The green box to the right in this picture was a set of Narnia books published by the folio society… they looked amazing and were also $$$. 

Flinders books.  The lady is Hilde and that’s her son Sullivan.  I met them the night before at the booksellers dinner… yes there was a booksellers dinner that I haven’t written about, imagine a room full of book dealers eating and chatting… it was very enjoyable (really).  Anyway I met these 2 as well as a heap of other booksellers from all over Australia.  In the background of this photo you can see some of the Brown and Bunting stall.  They weren’t there when I was taking my photos so I couldn’t ask if it was OK.

Anyway, it’s all over for another year.  I will be selling again next year.

Clunes Booktown 2011 Saturday

It’s now Sunday morning.  Yesterday was a roaring success… well maybe not roaring… lets say that yesterday was great and I was very happy with my sales.  Takings were up approx 15% and that was on a day of predicted bad weather… which ended up being brisk with very minimal rain.  Apparently it bucketed down with rain in Melbourne in the early morning which was also predicted for some of Victoria.  Today forecast for Clunes is mostly sunny.  The theory is that people that may have decided to not come to Clunes yesterday will come today.  I of course like this theory as in the past 2 years the Sunday trade has been sluggish.

So what did people buy yesterday… everything.  A lot of people were looking at and buying cookbooks, fiction (all sorts), not much interest this year in craft and art.  Lots of other stuff has sold, too many genres to mention but I think my nothing over $10 marketing plan has worked.  I’ve spruicked this important information constantly and people have seemed very pleased to find out that my pricing is very reasonable… with 1 exception.  A gentlemen thought the $6 was too much to pay for a hardcover childrens book from the 1970s… this was a little annoying.  Overall all though people have seemed to be very happy with my prices.

A few nice compliments on my stock.  Someone commented that I have very different books to everyone else (this was a compliment… I ask them if it was). 

I did get a break yesterday and forgot to take some photos, will attempt to do so today.

Finally the Huc & Gabet logo/signage.

Huc & Gabet new logo/signage.

Finally, after 3 years of careful consideration, indecision and task avoiding, I now have a logo/signage.  This stuff takes a long time with me.  I’m not sure why but it does.  It took me 3 years to get the name Huc & Gabet and that was me actively pondering.  So another 3 years for a logo is not really that unexpected.  I’m writing about this now, as this weekend (another blatant plug for this event) I will be unveiling my new signage… OK the truth is… I’ll be whacking up these laminates around my stall.  There is a possibility there may be one larger “fancy” sign… still not definite though.

(This is a dodgy photograph... it doesn't really look that blurry.  The original file was too big to send over the www.  This will give you an idea of what it looks like)

Some of you might be thinking what’s all the fuss about… or maybe even thinking you don’t like it.  Fair enough, it is just a logo supposed to give an idea of who and what I am… you know… a bookseller. 

There's a long history to this logo.  The first 18 months were very slow and tentative and realistically nothing happened due to my indecision and lack of... whatever i lacked.  Some assistance was offered (thanks Ingrid) but... well... nothing happened (i take full responsibility).  Then along came Alina who offered some help and recommended a great website for fonts.  She was very encouraging and generally of great assistance… still took me another 18 months after this to finish the whole thing, but I look upon this whole process as really beginning with her kind offer of assistance.  …and then after finding an image that I liked, I needed some more help with some photoshop skills to remove an unwanted object from the image (I am sadly lacking in this area of expertise... probably one of the reasons this takes me so long).  Alina once again came to the rescue in the middle of studying, parenting and lack of any spare time… truly appreciated.  So i had the font and the image but needed a hand with how to put it all together.  Mel is someone who lives here in Clunes and I was aware that he had been involved in design etc and so I figured I would ask him if he would assist me with some of his graphic design skills, and he didn't hesitate in saying yes… what I didn’t know was that Mel had studied graphic design in the 1960s and is completely computer illiterate… not to worry though.  He had some excellent advice and design ideas.  Finally my good friend Richard who does have excellent computer graphic skills (and other skills), kindly assisted with putting the whole thing together for me.  This was done on very short notice… again truly appreciated. I think my design team, who aren't really a team, have succeeded, and i am happy to say i am happy with the results.

Over the next few days I’ll be doing some quick posts/updates from the book fair, probably with lots of photos.  Stay tuned.