My Mistakes

I suppose every book dealer has them. No I’m not talking about bad backs although I’m sure most dealers also have them. I’m talking about books that were bought at one time with the hope of selling them, and instead they sit and sit and sit usually on the top of some bookcase or underneath a table or desk or maybe packed away in cartons so that they can never be thought of again. I even have books stored in my kitchen cabinets. These are my mistakes. These mistakes reside also on my database and thus are on the Internet for the entire world to see and not buy. The other day I decided that it was time for them to go, just like George W. Bush, except in this case I can most definitely do something about this problem. I’ve had these pathetic volumes at least since 1998, and some even longer, like a bad case of dandruff you can’t get rid of. I decided they had to go mainly because of the valuable space these losers are taking up in my apartment, so I took down from shelves and out of the closets 70 books with the idea that I would put them in big shopping bags and in a week or so with the help of my friend Howard we would drive them to some bookstore in New Jersey. Hopefully they will take them off my hands and with any luck will offer up some store credit so I can buy more books that I won’t be able to sell, and they will take up the same valuable space that their friends have just vacated. I spent $109.93 on these suckers, which comes out to like $1.57 for each book. You must be wondering how I could tell the exact amount I spent on them, well like many dealers I code my books so not only do I know how much I paid for each one, but also where I bought them. Cool, but depressing because when I looked them over I thought to myself “Why the fuck did I ever buy this book, or that book.” Did I really think I could find someone to buy “Debbie, My Life”, by the one and only Ms. Debbie Reynolds, or George Arliss’s autobiography “Up The Years From Bloomsbury” published in 1927. Sure it has a nice dustjacket, but does anyone even remember George Arliss or for that matter Debbie Reynolds. And even though I was selling them for cheap they still sat unread and unloved. So maybe you would like to buy my copy of “The Steven Spielberg Story”, or “Born Free”, I have several different editions of that one. And why did I buy a copy of “Halo Over Hollywood” by George Jessel in which Georgie hears the voices of Hollywood stars from the world beyond. I could never even stand the man, yet because I thought it was a strange little book I plopped down $3.60 for this gem and there it sat and sits. How about a paper copy of “Touch Me. The Poems of Suzanne Somers”, I’m almost embarrassed to say that I actually paid 74 cents for this piece of crap. Or maybe you’d like a copy of “Still Water. Prose Poems” by Art Garfunkel. This one I couldn’t pass up for 50 cents. I just can’t believe that no one has grabbed these two marvelous books of poetry. Maybe Suzanne and Art could do an evening of their poetry at the 92^nd street Y? I won’t go but surely there might be a large audience there and then maybe someone would buy my copies offered for only $10.00 each. Hell who am I kidding I couldn’t even give these two books away. To be fair to myself there are some decent books waiting to be taken on that long trip to the Garden State. Like what you’re probably thinking? Well how about “Paradise Alley” by that great American writer Sylvester Stallone or “Photo Oops” which is a fun book of terrible photos of celebrities caught off guard that would be perfect for a Christmas stocking stuffer or how about a picture book on great New York Restaurants that no longer exist including the one that came down on Sept. 11th or “The Actor’s Book of Movie Monologues” for that struggling young actor in your life. For those interested in movie star or celebrity bios I have in the shopping bags, bios of Michael Caine, Bogart, Lana Turner, Gary Cooper Mayer and Thalberg, Harrison Ford and his amour that great actress Calista Flockhart. Novel wise I have “Hannibal” “A Thousand Acres” (there are almost that many copies on line), “The Horse Whisperer”, “The Hawk” or “Felicia’s Journey.” What these books all have in common of course is that they were all made into bad movies. I have a weakness for novels that have been turned into bad films and these are great examples of that new sub-genre that I’ve sort of invented. So come on, this is your last chance to grab these and many other beautiful losers before they take that one way trip to New Jersey and hopefully I’ll never see them again.