NOT QUITE GOLD, BUT A BOOKISH WEEKEND

Spent the weekend exploring Grass Valley and Nevada City (former gold mining towns by the border of California and Nevada) because they supposedly contain these fabulous used bookstores. Depressing -- the book business continues to be depressed. What was available in these two towns can probably be captured by just a couple of bookstores in Berkeley. I'd say nearly all of the bookstores we hit are just going through remaining inventory without attempting to maintain a growing or at least vibrant selection. One bookseller said that Grass Valley lost its "book town" status long ago, however that is conferred, and for a reason: I could smell the staleness.

There were a couple of slightly amusing incidents -- for one, buying for $10 the first Arras chapbook put out by Brian Kim Stefans; who'da thunk I'd have to go all the way to Grass Valley to acquire The Analogy Guild by Tim Davis.

Then, at another bookstore, I expressed interest in H.D.'s Hermetic Definition but there was no price on it. The bookseller compared it to a slightly thicker poetry (though not poems) book, SELF-INTERVIEWS by James Dickey and said, based on thickness, should be about the same as that. I replied, Well, H.D.'s is thinner. Hence, I got H.D. for $3 vs Dickey's $5 sticker price.

Pathetic, indeed, is "poetry economics." Particularly when booksellers don't know what they're selling. Naturally, at all the used bookstores, the poetry section was the shelf(ves) as an aside...

Anyway, here are this weekend's addition to Galatea's library, including the Poetry Library:

POETRY:
NEVER WITHOUT ONE by Diane Ward

IRIS by Mark Jarman

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE MEN WHO BETRAYED ME AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER IK HOPES THEY WILL FALL OFF THEIR MOTORCYCLES AND BREAK THEIR NECKS: THE MOTORCYCLE BETRAYAL POEMS by Diane Wakoski

WHO WHISPERED NEAR ME by Killarney Clark

IO AT NIGHT by Laurie Sheck

SELF-INTERVIEWS by James Dickey

HERMETIC DEFINITION by H.D.

STOLEN APPLES by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

BAPTISM OF DESIRE by Louise Erdrich (hardback and paperback)

THE CITY OF SATISFACTIONS by Daniel Hoffman

PROSE AND POEMS by Nick Joaquin

WHITE SAIL by Gilbert Sorrentino

COLLECTED POEMS 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott

UTOPIA TV STORE by Maxine Chernoff

THE ANALOGY GUILD by Tim Davis

THE CANTICLE OF THE ROSE: POEMS 1917-1949 by Edith Sitwell

THE SONG OF THE COLD by Edith Sitwell


NON-POETRY (in no particular order):
DOWN BELOW by Leonora Carrington

LEONARDO DA VINCI'S ADVICE TO ARTISTS

THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

WARFARE IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD, John Murray

WARFARE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, Eds. John Hackett

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, VOL. I to VI, Ed. John Bancroft

WARPATH AND BIVOUAC,John Finerty

A HISTORY OF SEA POWER, William Oliver Stevens 7 Allan Westcott

ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, John G. Miller

THE EARLY GREEKS, R.J. Hopper

A HISTORY OF GREECE TO 322 B.C., N.G.B. Hammond

A HANDBOOK OF GREEK SCULPTURE, Ernest Arthur Gardner

MEDIEVAL WARFARE, Timothy Newark

FAMINE DIARY: JOURNEY TO A NEW WORLD, Gerald Keegan

LAKOTA NOON; THE INDIAN NARRATIVE OF CUSTER'S DEFEAT, Gregory F. Michno

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, I & II, William Prescott

WHAT I SAW IN CALIFORNIA: BEING THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR 1846, 1847, Edwin Boyet

SCRAPS OF CALIFORNIA HISTORY, Simeon Ide

STANLEY IN AFRICA, Henry M. Stanley

LAND, SEA AND AIR, Mark Kerr

THE GREAT SEA WAR: THE STORY OF NAVAL ACTION IN WORLD WAR II, Eds E.B. Potter and Chester Nimitz

1916 SUPPLEMENT TO THE COMPILATION OF GENERAL ORDERS, CIRCULARS AND BULLETINS