Inside Jacket

When the title says Talks With Trees, it really  means TALKS With Trees… and plants, and shrubs, and vegetables.

Leslie Cabargo began speaking with plants after asking a potted plant how it was doing and the plant replied that it was experiencing some difficulties.  So you see, Cabargo isn’t like you or I – he doesn’t say something offhandedly when giving an African Violet a weekly dribble of water.  He makes a point of talking to the plant and then waiting for an answer.  What a patient man…

Along with Talks With Trees, we’ve added books relating the accounts of going to the planet Venus and of a summer spent in the company of a leprechaun.

While you’re in the Weird Book Room, why not find out Who’s Who of British Beheadings or where to find a big cat in Dorset.   You’ll also want to take a look at an evaluation of the moral values of James Bond.

Join us in celebrating our 101st book and visit the Weird Book Room!

In honour of the first flakes of snow that have been falling around here the last few days….the Guardian posted a quiz today on snow in literature. I got 11/14! Given how miserably I usually fare on the Guardian’s quizzes, I’m quite pleased. What about you?

Quiz on Literary Snow

Beloved English novelist Jane Austen was born on this day in 1775, which, if she were alive today, would make her…. 234. I wonder what she’d be writing about if she were still alive and writing? I often wonder what people from a long time ago would think if they were transported to the present instantly. I imagine they would be simultaneously amazed at the technology and convenience of cars, iPods, airplanes, and terrified at the extent to which other things have sunk. I imagine Laura Ingalls Wilder holding a bottle of lemonade and looking at the words “MADE WITH 25% REAL LEMON JUICE” in bewilderment, and wondering what the hell else was in it.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Jane Austen! If you need a last minute gift idea for a serious book lover in your life, a beautiful, collectible Jane Austen edition would be a wonderful gift, and we have a good selection. And really, everyone should read Pride and Prejudice before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Just sayin’.

Photographer Larry Sultan died on Sunday at the age of 63. He’s famous for Evidence, a watershed modern art photography book of pictures of industrial and government archives co-authored with Mike Mandel. Yesterday, we sold a $2,500 first edition of Evidence. The book’s cover doesn’t really say much about the stark images found inside.

A graduate student with ingenuity, time and an idea has made his own Do-it-yourself book scanner, and after the fact, made available his 79-step process so anyone can join in.

He doesn’t make it sound too hard, either.

“The hardware is ridiculously simple as long as you are not demanding archival quality,” he says. “A dumpster full of building materials, really cheap cameras and outrageous textbook prices was all I needed to do it.”

The contraption is capable of scanning a 400-page book in about 20 minutes, though it requires manual turning of pages.

Kudos to him for creativity, but he could have saved a lot of time and sweat if he’d known how cheap the textbooks on AbeBooks.com are!