This is U-Needa-Book of Bandon, Oregon. I discovered this bookstore last summer during my vacation up the West Coast and have been meaning to post an image since then. Just came across it again on my computer. Better late than never?

The store is literally about 10×15 and occupies what looks to have formerly been a fishing shack. Sadly the shop was closed when I walked by, but is was surprisingly uncluttered when I peaked in through the window. Apparently it is a satellite location of the nearby Beach Loop Books.

The hope is between the ease of posting, relatively quick turnover, and side-stepping the commissions of listing sites, it will be a worthwhile venture. At the same time, however, I like the way the shorthand Twitter requires recalls earlier days of bookselling: of quotes to Bookman’s Weekly or the inscrutable abbreviations of mimeographed book catalogs. So while on the surface this may seem a slightly gimmicky bookselling tactic, I like to think of it as just another extension of venerable trade traditions.

Some basic info:

1) What you see is what you get: All prices INCLUDE postage (within the US via USPS media mail). Elsewhere and/or via other methods would require additional cost.
2) No scruffy books here: Unless noted, all books are in Very Good or better condition
3) Act fast: All books are subject to prior sale. Reply or direct message via Twitter to reserve.
4) Keeping it simple: Paypal payment preferred (to books@briancassidy.net), though checks, credit cards, moneys orders all acceptable as well. Please await confirmation before sending payment. And as much as possible, books and their respective tweets will be deleted as they sell. So if you see something you like that’s still listed, even if an older post, it’s probably still available.

SOME FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS:

HC = Hardcover (no DJ)
HC/DJ = Hardcover with dust jacket
PB = Trade paperback
MMPB = Mass market paperback
BCE = Book club edition
1st = First edition
VG = Very good condition
NF = Near fine condition
F = Fine condition
NF/F = Near fine hardcover in a fine dust jacket (or VG/NF, F/F…you get the idea)

Junk is a major problem, it tends to creep in. The taste of the bookseller is important. We sell only our kind of books, a general humanities selection, all in very good condition.”

Sadly, the shop is closing.

Meanwhile, Bookhunter is an entire graphic novel now available online that is perhaps more exciting but distinctly less, well, accurate. But how can you not love a comic book that contains the following: “I’ve dated dozens of Caxtons in the lab. We can just check its rubrication against the BAL entry.”

[The latter via my friend Chris. Thanks!]

Is there a point when a bookstore becomes too big to remain truly independent? Does size matter? Can there be a large independent book store with a Costco-style approach to their employees?

The call came from someone who said he was the Los Angeles blogger and first novelist Mark Sarvas, who was reading at the store in a few days and seemed to be in a pinch. His car had been impounded, he needed money to get it back and he needed it right away.

“I thought, ‘Why isn’t he calling his wife?’ ” recalled Slattery. “But maybe he can’t reach anybody, maybe he had an extra drink. . . . It never occurred to me that it wasn’t him.

“So even though I think it’s a little weird that he’s asking me to help him get his car out of impound, I’m also thinking, ‘Well, it’s Saturday night, maybe he couldn’t reach anybody, and you know, I’m going to see him on Tuesday. . . .’ And he didn’t say anything about money for a really long time.”

It was only when she was about to wire the money via Western Union, and having to give a password one too many times, that she began to have second thoughts. “I realized, ‘Oh, my God, I almost sent $200. . . .’ The guy was good.”

They also impersonated Nick Hornby.

[Via GalleyCat]

That’s poet August Kleinzahler in his poem “San Francisco/New York” nailing a miniature portrait of the biz in just a few lines. The NYT recently profiled him.

[Via Donald Ramsey of ALL BOOKS CONSIDERED via the indispensable Bibiliophile List. Thanks!]

The city tried to rebrand the area as a technology corridor, but not a single dot-com materialized. Instead, three nonprofit organizations formed a partnership in 1999, bought three adjacent warehouses and renovated them into Open Book, which says it is the largest — if not the only — literary and book arts center in the United States.

How Minneapolis used books to revitalize a neighborhood.

Books In New York is an ongoing project, working to create a visual catalog of New York City’s bookstores, libraries and book collections, both public and private.

Nice write-ups and sharp photos. I’m currently partial to this one from the New York Society Library:

Nice short comic [click image above for complete strip] from Eastern Europe about a bookseller who has every book in the world “except one.”

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

[Mouse-over the top of the frame to activate slide-show controls.]