Re: May the shade of Ashton Clark hover over your right shoulder and guard your left.

>> but you might do your
>> readers more of a service
>
>Than drawing their attention to it? To discussing and interesting
>part of the book?

The point you are missing is that the addition of the link will result
in more of a service being done to your reader than is being done now.
My statment is not about diminishing what you have already done, it is
about an easy way to enhance that.

>Actually, in case you were wondering, I did consider pointing to
>powells, abebooks, et al, but the nature of used books is to go
>out of stock, eh? So pointing to possibly transitory links didn't
>seem quite worth it.

The first link in that set I e-mailed you (
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch?ph=2&an=Samuel+R.+Delany&tn
=nova ) lists 211 copies of the book you discuss for sale, and it is
not tied to a particular copy or version of the book, so I don't think
it is as transitory as you seem to worry that it is.

Even if it is, the choice is whether to curse the darkness or light a
candle.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bijan Parsia" <bparsia-vEoVa6Jh+/J4piUD7e9S/[email protected]>
To: "Norton" <[email protected]>
Cc: <bonobos-4GNy1lrxftmrG/[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2001 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: May the shade of Ashton Clark hover over your right
shoulder and guard your left.


On Sun, 4 Feb 2001, Norton wrote:

> I liked your piece on Samuel R. Delany's Nova,

Thanks.

> but you might do your
> readers more of a service

Than drawing their attention to it? To discussing and interesting part
of
the book?

> if, instead of merely bemoaning the fact
> that it is out of print,

Well, I don't *just* bemoan it. I pointed it out to make some points.

> you pointed them to any of the sources of
> used and out of print books on the net:

Well, I agree it's a service, but it's such a *mild* service that
somehow
I don't feel like much of a failure having not done it. I mean, I
*hope*
that mf readres are capable of checking their used book stores and
used
book store web sites.

Actually, in case you were wondering, I did consider pointing to
powells,
abebooks, et al, but the nature of used books is to go out of stock,
eh? So pointing to possibly transitory links didn't seem quite worth
it.

[snip]
> I hope you pass these along to your readers.

Again, individual urls/searches seem a little wrongheaded,without some
sort of dynamic updating (I intend to bemoan the out of printness of
MLK's
last book too :)). But maybe we can cobble some sort of dynamic
checker
that only points to actually available books. Abebooks is really quite
good that way.

>  I also invite you have a
> look at my site over at http://norton.blogspot.com.  Among the items
> that may be of interest over there is my rant about crossing paths
> with Dick Cheney a week ago:
>
http://norton.blogspot.com/archives/2001_01_28_norton_archive.html%232
214239

That was pretty damn funny! "Mah heart! Must have more cheez-whiz!!!"

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.