Great Britain Postage Paid

Getting mail is always exciting (unless it's just ads, of course). Getting mail all the way from London is even more exciting.I bet that little logo looks rather familiar to some people. A while back I filled out the form on the Persephone Books website to receive their catalogue and biannually. I'd rather forgotten about it, but I came home on Friday to find it waiting for me. Already open. Silly father, opening my mail (I suppose he wanted to know what I'd ordered all the way from London).

And inside this nice white package (my address all written out, looks like a fountain pen, first name semi-illegible, the 8 in my zip code all smudgey, and with "Printed Papers" stamped on it from somewhere in the maze of the post) we have several exciting things. First, a bookmark, for The Casino by Margaret Bonham, the excerpt of which sounds extremely intriguing. Then there's a "We are very pleased to be sending you..." letter, which talks about their latest books and how to buy them. (You're reading this, by the way, in the order I came to each item. Just so's you know.) Then the The Persephone Catalogue, No. 10. It's the most lovely catalogue I've ever seen. Information about all 86 books (oh dear, and I've only read one and a half), pictures of and blurbs about all the endpapers (which, if you didn't know, are images of fabric from the era of the book), some of them have images of manuscript pages or other relevant illustrations. I'm looking so looking forward to reading through this, though I'm sure it's going to make me want all these books desperately.

Lastly I uncovered the biannually, but first let me mention the order form. The paragraph about the cost is the most convoluted thing I've ever read, but it's also sort of whimsical. It's certainly far from buying books on Amazon. "Please send books No:___ at a cost of £10 for each of the 86 grey Originals or £9 for each Classic or £27 for three, + £2 p&p per book within the UK eg one book including UK postage is £12 (but £11 for one Classic), two books are £24 (but £22 for two Classics or £23 for one Classic and one Original, or any three books are £33."

The biannually talks about their three newest books, has some blurbs from various readers, reviewers, and bloggers (many of whom I read, so it's funny to see them in here) about some of their books, very short summaries about all 86 books, a short story by Dorothy Whipple, and a lot of nice illustrations.

So this was definitely much more exciting than the sorts of catalogues you usually get in the mail, and I can't wait to have time to read it (not looking likely in the very near future, it's nearly the end of the quarter and work is building up). Not to mention, time to read all these books. And of course now I've foolishly started looking through the UW library website to see which they have or could interlibrary loan, having realized that now I have access to it it's the perfect way to get British books I couldn't get otherwise. Oh, it's all so tempting.

Bookstore by chance

The best bookshops are often the ones you find by accident. I was wandering down Broadway on the way to the bead shop, saw a sign on the sidewalk for Pilot Books, and had to go into the building, up the stairs, and into the shop, just to see what it was. I'm quite well acquainted with Broadway, so this shop must be pretty new, though I haven't really been in the neighbourhood in a while. Pilot Books' main point is that it sells nothing but books by independent publishers.

It's a tiny little place, pleasant and calm with music playing in the background. The shelves are hung from the ceiling on wires, just an odd little detail that added to the charm. There's not a lot of stock, shelves for fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry, and graphic novels, but absolutely all of it looks fascinating and I would have bought all kinds of things were I not a penniless college student. Lots of the books have little cards in them that say something about what makes the book interesting, such as "local author," "haha," "GLBTQ," or "hot damn," (the last of which I can only assume just means it's a very impressive book), which is a nice touch.

I love that there are bookshops like this opening even in unfortunate financial times, standing up for the little guys in publishing and selling all the quirky, "unsellable" books. I know most people who pass by this blog probably don't live in Seattle and won't have the chance to visit this shop, but I thought I'd mention it all the same and get it out into the world a little more. Next time I have some money I don't feel guilty spending unnecessarily, I'll definitely be stopping by Pilot Books.

Paper vs. pixels

There's an interesting New York Times article I came by the other day, about the evolution of publishing since the 1970s. I thought I'd draw your attention to it, and also muse a little on the dilemma it brings up for me. I have such an instinctive love of the way things used to be done, paper, typewriters, the sort of messy and physical way so many things used to be done, such as Joni Evans talks about in that article. I also in many ways love what the internet has done to publishing and to the dissemination of books and the possibilities for discussion of them. These two things never seemed like they were so in conflict until I read this article, and that conflict makes me a little uncomfortable.

Regardless of this musing, I really don't believe that paper is going to die out completely. Humans are too tactile to rely solely on pixels.