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Japanese used bookstore chain really wants to buy your books

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Book Off, a secondhand bookstore chain in Japan, is in dire need of inventory. To try and remedy the situation they have produced a television commercial "begging customers to sell them books" The commercial features employees standing solemnly in two lines along near-empty bookshelves pleading with the viewers to sell them books.  Watch:   [youtube]https://youtu.be/9kUTT4TxWV8[/youtube] What kind of books are they asking after: “Books you’ve read already” “Books that won’t fit on the book shelf.” “Books left behind by the girlfriend you forgot about!” “Books you thought would make you look cool!” “Books someone could not stop talking about but...

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DIY: Build your own book arch

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Scott Hill, the proprietor of Sandman Books in South Florida,  has shared his secrets on how to make your very own book arch. It begins with a familiar bookseller quandary - what to do with all those books one acquires "that are simply at the end of their lives". Hill decided to do something fun and went to work building a book arch. He built his first one in 2013 and when his shop moved in 2019 he was back at it. The arch has become a bit of tourist destination and next month the first wedding vows will be...

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Here comes Bookshop.org!

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Have we reached the tipping point? Could this finally be the viable independent alternative to Amazon? Have we accepted the reality that cheap and fast does not equal healthy and does little to foster community sustainability? A tall order for sure but the timing might be a bit better than past efforts to compete against the Godzilla of bookselling. Enter Bookshop.org: Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support independent bookstores and give back to the book community. We believe that bookstores are essential to a healthy culture of readers and writers. They’re where authors can connect...

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International flavor comes to America: Early Ethnic cookbooks

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Chinese-Japanese Cook Book by Sara Bosse and Onoto Watanna [pseud.], Chicago, Rand McNally [c1914]. First Edition The folks at Rare Books Digest have put together an informative list of first appearances of various ethnic cookbooks in America. From the 1828 first American publication of a French cookbook to the first Greek cookbook that, amazingly enough, wasn't published in this country until 1942! Here's a sampling.  El cocinero español by Encarnación Pinedo. San Francisco, 1898. This was not only the first Mexican-American cookbook published in America it was also the first written by a Hispanic in the US and to mention...

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Significant LBGT collection goes to the University of London

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Jonathan Cutbill, the co-founder of Gay’s The Word bookshop in London's Bloomsbury neighborhood who died last year, has left his collection of 30,000 LBGT+ items to the University of London.  The collection, which has items dating back to 1760, will arrive having already been completely cataloged and cross referenced by Cutbill. Cutbill has been at the forefront of the LGBT struggle for justice for years. In 1984 his shop was raided by customs officers and he was accused of conspiracy to import obscene material. The charges where later dropped. photo by Stu Maddux Maria Castrillo, head of special collections and...

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