Friday, December 03, 2010

Bookselling in perspective

I ran across this in my wanderings today:

According to Orwell, "the real reason why I should not like to be in the book trade for life is that while I was in it I lost my love of books. A bookseller has to tell lies about books, and that gives him a distaste for them."

He was wrong. A great bookseller doesn't have to tell lies about books. A great bookseller is an interpreter who sometimes lets the books speak for themselves.--Robert Gray in Shelf Awareness, an e-letter for booksellers.

<idle musing>
I agree with Robert Gray, not Orwell! I point people to the books that they are looking for; the books—especially Eisenbrauns books—sell themselves.
</idle musing>

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