Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Out of this world and Out of print


 Potato Scrabble is a low-level pastime undertaken to pass such time as needs passing when it is not being passed in higher level pastimes such as chess or crosswords. Activities such as writing, music and reading have been elevated to 'what I do' in the time since finishing paid work.
I operate at level 4, out of 5, and win maybe 30% of the time. Level 5 had seemed impossible as the computer helps itself to 7-letter bonuses on aregular basis and one stands no chance with a rack either full of vowels or none at all. But last night, just by way of a change, I had a few goes at level 5 and got lucky. 484-361 would be a good result at level 4 but at 5 it's a giant-killing comparable to that day when Colchester beat Leeds. I took a picture of it and will remember it always because it might not happen again.
--
News from David Green (Books), the 'imprint' that originally gave this website its name, is that most titles are very nearly genuinely out of print. I marked them as such some time ago so that nobody would order them from the ISBN catalogue. To say that it was not a commercial concern would be some understatement. But looking for a couple of copies of each to give to people whether they want them or not entailed a more painstaking search than most publishing houses would need to undergo, especially if they only ever had nine titles in their catalogue.

Re-read, the Selected Poems from 2005, has a handful of copies still left and there are one or two of The Perfect Book and The Perfect Murder but my own archive copies of anything else is about all I can find without going to the British Library to look myself up. It's both a shame and a good thing. There isn't a great deal of call for them but on rare occasions like now one would like a copy or two to give away. In a way it's a gorgeous thing to be out of print, as in the almost other-worldly irony of Success, the poem due in About Larkin next month.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.