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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2015 17:54:05 GMT
I was thinking about a kindle purchase but the used book was actually a little cheaper in this case. I have about 20 or so kindle books I have bought but I still prefer a printed book. Somehow, with a kindle book I don't feel that I actually own it for some reason.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 23, 2015 18:42:10 GMT
Logging onto our county library site I was surprised to see that there were no copies of any of his early books available. The later ones were there but 'Slugs','Relics', 'Assassin', 'Death Day' etc were all absent. Perhaps that is a sign that those earlier books don't pull in the readers as they used to, but it really surprised and saddened me. From my own experience of the library system, if it's a paperback published over, say, two years ago, then good luck with finding a copy in the system! The horror and crime books on the shelves in local "idea store" are in such pristine condition, you worry the security guards are under orders to liquidate anyone who dares try borrow one.
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Post by ripper on Sept 24, 2015 7:45:17 GMT
Security guards in libraries...who would have thought it would come to that. Thankfully, our county libraries, or at least the ones I have visited, still only have the usual library staff. One lady at my local branch has been there as long as I have been using it--close to 40 years. I do agree that stock at libraries seems to be shifted quite quickly. I've attended a fair few library sales and bought books for 20p that were still in perfectly acceptable condition. If Hutson's earlier books are disappearing from libraries, I wonder what is the state of play in bookshops? Our local W.H. Smith is so small you can't really judge anything from its stock.
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Post by bluetomb on Sept 24, 2015 9:51:37 GMT
I worked as a volunteer at a county library for some time, and would generally agree that the older the paperback the more of a job it is to find, but we did have a fairly steady stream of more or less random older titles, including the odd Hutson. How I amused myself one morning flitting between melting testicles and teaching IT to the elderly...
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Post by andydecker on Sept 24, 2015 9:55:06 GMT
I am absolutly ignorant about the british bookshops. Here in Germany the distribution system is rather efficient. You can order most popular stuff in a bookshop - even in the chains - and get it in one or two days, regardless if you live in the country or a big city. This is nothing new, 40 years ago it was the same. Only pharmacies are faster and have same day delivery.
Does it work the same in Britain?
But I have to confess that I wasn't in a public library for years. I used to visit them often, mostly for doing research. In the age of Google and Wikipedia this has become obsolete. I even don't know if they also have security or not. Maybe in the bigger cities.
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Post by ripper on Sept 24, 2015 13:34:01 GMT
Hi Bluetomb. Nice anecdote about Mr Hutson and the elderly :-). I have always wondered how the decision is made to retire a particular book from the county stock. I would imagine that book condition is an influence but is it also a judgement about how popular the book is with lenders, measured by number of loans? I suppose that space limitations will also come into the decision. Thinking back 2 or 3 decades ago and longer, the stock in our library was far more constant than it is now. Some books seemed to haunt the same library shelves for years. Also, back then, there were absolutely no paperbacks in our library, and I remember my surprise c.1995 finding a shelf of them one day, completely unsorted, well away from the main stock of hardbacks.
Hi Andy. It is basically the same in bookshops over here. You can walk into a shop and ask them to order a book for you, and depending on availability it will arrive inside a few days. For W.H. Smith shops and doubtless others, you can order a book online, pay for it, and have it delivered to your local W.H. Smith store and not pay any postage. It has been the same for decades, except back then you would have to telephone or go in the shop and they would search print catalogues for the book you were after, which could take some time.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 26, 2015 18:28:05 GMT
Thanks, ripper. Very interesting.
At least we still have bookshops. I read somewhere that in the US they are a dying breed.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 26, 2015 20:05:37 GMT
Thanks, ripper. Very interesting.
At least we still have bookshops. I read somewhere that in the US they are a dying breed. That, sadly, is pretty much the case in London. They're disappearing faster than even the pubs.
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Post by ripper on Sept 27, 2015 8:18:17 GMT
We only have a smallish W.H. Smith here, together with the plethora of charity shops to cater to book-buyers, but it is rather disheartening to go into these shops as you can usually predict which authors will dominate the shelves. I think that Dem is right that we are seeing a decline in the number of bookshops. I don't have any statistics to back that up, only noting in neighbouring larger towns that there are fewer than there used to be.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 19, 2018 16:10:16 GMT
Well. I enjoyed Hell Train. And I enjoyed The Day Of The Triffids. I'm now reading (or rereading) Relics. Jings. Shurely Chainsaw Terror can't have been much more out there than this? It's a riot. And good call re The Skull Erebus, it is very very similar. And a good comparison, as I like The Skull's old -fashioned feel. Relics doesn't hold back . Looking forward to the dodgy ending now. Heh!
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 22, 2018 21:44:33 GMT
Rather enjoyed the ending, as , per comments above, I was expecting a right disappointment. Exploding pus....and then.....darkness.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 22, 2018 21:51:05 GMT
Rather enjoyed the ending, as , per comments above, I was expecting a right disappointment. Exploding pus....and then.....darkness. My life has reached a sorry pass when I'm glad to see anybody spelling "pus" correctly, and feel the need to comment on it to boot....This comes of reading too much unedited Kindle horror fiction.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 22, 2018 21:55:40 GMT
Thanks Swampy. Did you know there used to be a UK punk band called Pus? I never saw them play live, but saw and heard them outside a pub in Fulham called The Greyhound chanting "We're Pus! We're Pus! We don't care what you think of us!" I learnt how to spell it at Mr. Hutson's knee.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 22, 2018 22:20:09 GMT
Thanks Swampy. Did you know there used to be a UK punk band called Pus? I never saw them play live, but saw and heard them outside a pub in Fulham called The Greyhound chanting "We're Pus! We're Pus! We don't care what you think of us!" I learnt how to spell it at Mr. Hutson's knee. Strangely enough, I've never heard of them The chant is catchy, I'll give them that....
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Post by bluetomb on Feb 23, 2018 11:03:05 GMT
Not actually read this yet but I took the comparisons above to the end of City of the Living Dead as a good thing.
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