Caring for Used Books...
From: Chuck Darling
Dec 12, 2024
Re: Books to read...
When I was a kid, maybe 10 years old,
I bought comic books weekly with
my 25 cent, then 50 cent allowance...
My sister bought candy with hers...
A neighborhood friend had a big
collection, and we would trade and
swap comics we had read...
I asked him where he got all the
old comics that he had, and he
showed me a corner bookstore
that sold used science fiction books,
and old comics.
Since he traded comics with other kids
around the blocks, he asked me to keep his source a secret, and I did.
When I found I could get comics for
Five Cents, I began collecting my
pennies and buying several a week
This made my sister jealous, and
my Mother confronted me rather
angrily about the source of my comics.
She raised my sister's allowance,
and made me take her to the
bookstore too.
Eventually, my sister got a degree in English,
and wrote a novel while drinking Chai
at a Starbucks...
On a MacBook that I sold her ...
( @ $6/hour, no commission...)
( See PS.)
She called her young-adult fantasy novel
Used books are good for you.
Get your kids some nice titles,
and put them in their Christmas Stocking !
PS.
Old paperbacks used hide glue, which
eventually crystallizes and becomes brittle,
causing covers to fall off, and pages to
fall out. When you purchase a used book,
consider the binding.
If there are cracks in the spine, then
you must rehabilitate the book, before
you read it.
An electric iron applied to the spine
of the book, through a piece of paper,
will re-melt the hide glue, and hold the
pages in.
If you are squeamish about "germs"
on a used book, then put it in a warm oven
for 30 minutes...
.
Don't use white glue to replace a binding,
it takes too long to dry.
Use a hot-glue gun.
Modern paperbacks use thermoplastc glues for a "PERFECT BINDING"
I learned a neat method of Hardcover repair
from a high-schools classmate,
Wayne Palmer.
He carried his grandfather's Bible to
the Hutch-Tech Bible Club that five of us
formed in our Junior year.
It was a large, heavy KJV Bible,
and he showed it to me, and dangled it
by the back cover.
I repaired the binding, he explained.
Take the fabric of an old umbrella,
and glue it to the pages.
Then, when it is dry, glue the overhanging flaps to the inside of the cover.
When that is dry, glue a strip of
strong paper over the flaps.
The umbrella fabric is thin, tough, and flexible.
It makes a fine repair.
PS.
I made these at Starbucks:
Regarding Computer City:
It was an enormous store that sold
everything... except Tandy, who owned
Computer City.
They paid us techie salemen peanuts...
But we had fun selling 40 computers a week, even without Commission.
I bought my first (and only) Windows
Tower there, we got a shipment of
Refurbished HP Pavilion Win95 towers,
and I got a discount on the $400 list...
I asked a fellow salesman what he thought
of the unit, he used to work for IBM.
I'd buy it ! he said.
So I did...
and entered the Internet world of
America Online. (Included...)
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