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Post by sean on Aug 11, 2008 11:47:43 GMT
Well, I didn't stay lacking sf anthologies for long...
The Years Best Scince Fiction 7 (edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss)
Dangerous Visions 1 (edited by Harlan Ellison)
There were a few more I must pick up as well when I have a few more pennies.
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Post by allthingshorror on Aug 12, 2008 16:41:54 GMT
Spent little - got lots at Felixstowe and Colchester today. And got one over on those little buggers in Oxfam. As they didn't rub out the pencil prices that were inside the front cover - I said that I shouldn't have to pay what the oxfam sticker said on the back of the book. For once they didn't argue....
Caviar by Theodore Sturgeon (Sphere '74 reprint)
Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon (Sphere UK first '67)
The Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer (Quartet '75)
Night of the Crabs by GNS (NEL Feb '77 reprint)
The Dance of Death by Algernon Blackwood (Pan 2nd printing '73)
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by Lovecraft (Panther Horror '63)
Till Death Us Do Part - Film Tie In by John Burke (Pan '67)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Film Tie In by John Burke (Pan '68)
The Bill 3 by John Burke (Thames 1989)
Gothic! (Walker Books 2004)
I Shudder at your Touch (BCA 1991)
and the biggies:
Tales to Make the Flesh Creep ed by Van Thal (Constable '77)
Best Tales of Terror ed by Edmund Crispin (Faber '62)
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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 12, 2008 16:54:35 GMT
Spent little - got lots at Felixstowe and Colchester today. I know Colchester very well. I'm often there. I went to school in Colchester. Do you go to the Castle bookshop? I have some relations in Felixstowe. |
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Post by allthingshorror on Aug 12, 2008 17:01:35 GMT
Yes sir, the Castle bookshop (near the dreaded Oxfam) is where I got the not unreasonably priced Best Tales of Terror - though I do prefer Poor Richards Bookshop in Felixstowe - and if you are into Sci-Fi - it has a rather good selection there...
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Post by sean on Aug 13, 2008 10:06:37 GMT
... And got one over on those little buggers in Oxfam. As they didn't rub out the pencil prices that were inside the front cover - I said that I shouldn't have to pay what the oxfam sticker said on the back of the book. For once they didn't argue.... Coo, so you conned a charity shop out of a few measly pennies. Nothing to be proud of, I wouldn't have thought. |
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Post by allthingshorror on Aug 13, 2008 12:59:26 GMT
... And got one over on those little buggers in Oxfam. As they didn't rub out the pencil prices that were inside the front cover - I said that I shouldn't have to pay what the oxfam sticker said on the back of the book. For once they didn't argue.... Coo, so you conned a charity shop out of a few measly pennies. Nothing to be proud of, I wouldn't have thought. Sean, with the utmost of respect - it's charity shops like Oxfam who are overpricing books to such an extent that they are outpricing many of the second hand bookshops - who sadly have to close as a direct result. So, excuse me while I take no heed of your missive and rip as much from Oxfam as I can. |
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Post by benedictjjones on Aug 13, 2008 13:08:56 GMT
^Did you push an old lady out the way as well =O)
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Post by sean on Aug 13, 2008 13:18:25 GMT
Sean, with the utmost of respect - it's charity shops like Oxfam who are overpricing books to such an extent that they are outpricing many of the second hand bookshops - who sadly have to close as a direct result. So, excuse me while I take no heed of your missive and rip as much from Oxfam as I can. Your logic is more than a little shaky there, but self-justification often has little to do with sound reasoning. Here's hoping that next time you argue prices in a charity shop they quite rightly tell you to stick it. |
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Post by dem on Aug 13, 2008 14:22:37 GMT
Maybe mentioned it before, but someone who's spent years in the industry recently explained to me why you can no longer find all those old Wheatley/ Pan/ Confessions ... paperbacks that once proliferated at every charity shop/ car book sale in Britain, like the publishers were churning out a thousand a day just to serve that purpose. Seems that, some years back, the top brass decided they couldn't justify selling a book for £1 if it had 'recommended price: 35p' printed on the cover ..... so they trashed them. That - according to my friend: and I've no cause to doubt him - is how come the majority of the second hand books you find in Oxfam & Co. are modern dross as opposed to good old fashioned 'seventies rubbish with proper covers. Have you ever heard so depressing a story that didn't bear the dread credit 'Charles Birkin'? Slim pickings for me recently but hopefully my luck's on the turn'cause today I turned up a copy of Christopher Fowler's recent collection Old Devil Moon in the Spitalfield Crypt Charity Shop for £1.  |
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Post by killercrab on Aug 13, 2008 14:52:48 GMT
Seems that, some years back, the top brass decided they couldn't justify selling a book for £1 if it had 'recommended price: 35p' printed on the cover ..... so they trashed them. That - according to my friend: and I've no cause to doubt him - is how come the majority of the second hand books you find in Oxfam & Co. are modern dross as opposed to good old fashioned 'seventies rubbish with proper covers. >>
Well that certainly explains the dross on the shelves and the more interesting stuff in the box outside for 25p! I generally find chazzers carry nowhere near the stuff I like to read and drive me to hunt out secondhand shops.
ade
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Post by bushwick on Aug 13, 2008 17:32:07 GMT
That is absolutely shocking, criminal even. A whole era of pop culture just thrown away. A friend of mine works for a charity shop in Leeds and they will not put books on the shelf if they have tatty covers...but I've got her to look out for anything horror/Western/trashy looking and put it by for me.
Thinking about it, that could be worth doing, perhaps. Ask the staff in your local charity shop to put away any books that are too old/tatty to sell and you will come in and take 'em, making a generous donation. They couldn't pass that up surely. If they know there's a demand, surely it's more revenue for the charity n'est-ce pas?
anyway...
Got a shedload of books recently. Went to a massive antiques/market place near Lincoln the other week (can't remember the name of the place, huge though) and got tons of stuff. Some of these are from 2nd hand shops in Lincoln too:
Trance - Joy Fielding (Hamlyn)
Ryder Stacy - Doomsday Warrior 7 and 3 (Futura) (top Commie-smashing entertainment)
Pan 5 & 7
Tales of Mystery...Poe (Pan)
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Hart The Regulator 5 and 7 - John Harvey (Pan)
Adam Steele 1, 22,24, 28 - GGG (NEL)
Dracula Returns - Robert Lory (NEL)
Zombie! - Peter Tremayne (Sphere)
The Funhouse (film tie-in) - Owen West (Sphere)
Rattlers - Joseph L Gilmore (Hamlyn)
The Undertaker 1 and 4 - GGG (NEL)
The Handyman - Gerald Suster (NEL)
Entombed - GNS (Hamlyn)
Edge 10, 23, 32 (NEL)
The Book Of The American West (massive lavishly illustrated hardback w/dustcover from 1963, excellent condition, was £3, Amazon Marketplace is trying it on for between £70-100!)
Also from other sources:
Throwback - GNS (NEL)
Kommando 55 - Michael Hughes (NEL)
Blown - P J Farmer (Granada) (perfect nick, one pound, get in)
Hottest Blood - American 'sexy horror' anthology thing, got G Masteron and D Schow in it
Edge 32 (US Pinnacle edition)
Edge 38
think that's it
and just got Paradise Lost by L James and Apache 2 from amazon, a Breed novel and a Caleb Thorn on the way!
My small room is becoming overrun with books, crushing my sanity...
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 13, 2008 18:14:45 GMT
I was addicted to charity shops and used to buy tons of books. My experience in the last few years (admittedly a bit sporadic as Germany is a long way to travel for a second-hand book) is that there are very few where you can get a decent bargain and this policy of shiny new looking stock seems to defeat the multi fold purpose of a charity shop- which i always thought was to sell stacks of stuff, cheer everyone up with something cheapish and give some dosh to the needy.
One difficulty lies in which charity it is - some give very little, some a lot and are really run to more or less keep someone in work and jeans- others are run by self sacrificing good guys - Unfortunately, the latter are often the ones that are naive and sell stuff cheaper.
You can offer to help price stuff. A lot of the pricing is tragic due to their ignorance. Often some stuff is ten times more expensive than a bookshop and yet misses out on the odd really valuable thing.
I think Bushwick has hit it on the head really. Its quite a good idea to approach them and say you are keen on the crapola and will buy it in bundles.one man's nasty piece of garish pulp is anther man's manna from heaven
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Post by Calenture on Aug 14, 2008 18:15:02 GMT
Sean, with the utmost of respect - it's charity shops like Oxfam who are overpricing books to such an extent that they are outpricing many of the second hand bookshops - who sadly have to close as a direct result. So, excuse me while I take no heed of your missive and rip as much from Oxfam as I can. I worked for a year as an unpaid assistant manager for Oxfam. I know that they attract a lot of criticism from traders because their practice of upping prices while they have less to pay outgoing than regular retailers makes them unfair competition. The practise of culling stock is justified in the case of clothes, because after a few weeks it all gets recycled - all of it. ...but people never quite seem to get the hang of books. Every volunteer seems to think themselves an expert. Occasionally real treasures are rescued and sold for justifiable high prices. And we increased our book sales from about £50 a week to about £200 a week. But the book pricers are instructed to use Abe's Books as a guide, which isn't cheap! And they just don't understand pulp - by the time they figure it out, they'll have recycled most of it probably! And working for them led to the worst illness I ever experienced. I'll never set foot in an Oxfam again, and frankly I'd like to see them wiped off our high streets. added later: One thing that does piss me off about other charity shops is that the people behind the counter often ask less than the marked price, when I'm about to hand them the right money! That's just bloody daft!  |
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Post by bushwick on Aug 17, 2008 14:23:08 GMT
A while back, I was speaking to the owners of a (now-defunct) second hand shop in Hyde Park, Leeds. Crying shame they went under really - had a great selection of old videos, records, furniture etc. But no paperbacks. Was quizzing them about this and they said charity shops had made it very hard for any second-hand shop, and what they told me was shocking. Apparently, anyone can set up a 'charity shop'. You have to make your accounts available for the public to look at, put 'em online or whatever, and give just £500 a year to your chosen charity! and that's it! So, people will DONATE their things to a charity shop, feeling they're doing their bit, rather than selling them to a second-hand shop. So second-hand shops can't get stock, while the charity shop gets all its stock for free, has low overheads (staffed by volunteers) and just has to donate 5 ton a year to charity - the rest is profit. Now, if this is 100% true, it's disgusting, and smacks to me of deceiving the goodwilled public. Anyone know any more about this? Rog, does this ring true?
Now's not the time to discuss the nature of charity, it's rights and wrongs...it's a complicated, contensious subject. BUT apparently the manager of the 0xfam shop in Headingley, Leeds pays himself a big fat salary, and the rest of the staff are volunteers. (Don't get me started on the Gary Glitter-esque activities of some 'charity workers' overseas...)
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Post by Calenture on Aug 17, 2008 18:53:58 GMT
Charity shops - they're almost the only shops left in my town, apart from the out-of-town supermarkets.
Oxfam shops do have paid managers, usually part-time. I'm not sure that they can "pay themselves fat salaries". Oxfam is nothing if not organised, including their payroll arrangements.
There are also higher-paid, full-time area organisers, who travel around inspecting the shops. A manager would probably arrange, say, a local TV/radio promotion. The area supervisor would check that the publicity was appropriate and that the shop was properly presented. Oxfam is very image-conscious: it's no good donating coat-hangers to them, they only use the uniform grey plastic ones. No toys will be stocked that don't have the EU safety mark.
Oxfam volunteers are allotted specific tasks. As assistant manager, I was the only person in the shop to muck in with everything. Book pricing is always controversial. The people who teach the pricing do know more or less what they're doing. But that can't be said for all the book pricers they try to teach.
Oxfam have recycling centres which deal with all the junked clothing. They also send coins and stamps to be packaged for sale to collectors. It's sad but there really is no hope for a lot of the books donated; they can build up to completely fill the shops back rooms! I tried donating a lot to other charity shops, but frankly, it usually couldn't be used.
Oxfam have a "shop of the year" award. The place where I worked was due for closure. After a year it had raised its profits to become "best Oxfam shop" in the country. As I said, I get angry with charities where people drop the prices for no reason (last week I picked up a hardback in dustwrapper - usually £1 - and a good paperback - usually 50p, and was told "Oh, £1 is enough," which hardly helped the animal charity concerned).
Oxfam do a lot of good work abroad. What finally got to me was its almost frightening organisation here which tends to manipulate the people working for it.
If you want to get second-hand books cheaper than Oxfam, what I'd suggest is going to an auction, where suitcases full of books are often sold for £1.
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