Traveling Man

It's not magic

I'm studying  an old magic book to learn how to make cards spring from one hand to the other.  In fact, the trick is called, "To make the cards spring from one hand to the other."  It belongs to the art of the juggler rather than to that of the magician, but it's so familiar a move that it behooves magicians to master it.

Criticism of genre fiction is an identifiable skill, too.  When it's done well, it addresses the genre.  When it does not, it seeks to make genre fiction something it is not. 

In the field of literary criticism, there are more jugglers than magicians; that's why so much genre fiction is so poorly appreciated.

Books for sale

I was at the flea market last Saturday and picked up a first American edition copy of Quo Vadis, in fairly nice condition and only cost a dollar.  I buy books like this all the time.  Today I went by the library sale (lucky me, I live next door to a library) and picked up a first American edition (no dust jacket) of Animal Farm, a book called Card Tricks, written by the mysterious Professor Romanoff and published in 1930, a first American edition of H. G. Well's Thirty Strange Stories (a very uncommon book, probably bootlegged; in 1897 the publishers weren't quick to offer royalties; better, I don't think this collection was ever put together in Britain), and a first edition, with dust cover, of J. M. Barrie's Courage.  All in very nice condition, all for $5.  The current value of these books would be about $250.

The flea market dealer said to me,"Print's dead."  I couldn't disagree with him more.  But is my opinion the only one that matters? 

Yeah, I think so.