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| Oxfam Bookfest |
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| A much nicer looking version of this article for Oxfam's Book festival is at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/books/?p=2200&books
Bookfest end notes: Marti Leimbach visits Oxfam Reading Bookshop
Guest blogger Marti Leimbach
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Every visit to an Oxfam bookshop is a treasure hunt. Books arrive by the tonne and are picked through by volunteers who specialise in a particular genre (from Harlequin romance to science fiction to Slavic languages) and who price the books accordingly. And if you get to know the booksellers at a particular shop, you might even persuade them to put aside a title for you before it hits the shelves.
In the basement at Oxfam Reading Bookshop, where I recently visited in order to promote Oxfam’s new anthology of short stories Ox-Tales, I watched as volunteer Steve Davis despatched a carton of different titles in the area of science fiction and fantasy. He told me the sci-fi from the ’50s and ’60s was the most valuable and that certain authors of that era are able to command a hefty price even if their books are missing covers. Another of the volunteers at Oxfam’s Reading branch told me about how she prices the romance books and of the emerging genre of erotica. There is a volunteer who does their language books, another whose specialty area is travel. In short, the shop is run by a group of experts – I’ve never seen anything like it.
Between samples of Fairtrade chocolate, pineapple, and other snacks offered free to the public, I chatted to customers and signed a few copies of the Ox-Tales “Earth” anthology in which I have a story, as well as my new novel, The Man From Saigon. Customers at Oxfam don’t usually buy new books but they were happy to know that the Ox-Tales series benefits Oxfam and that they were reading original stories from authors as famous as Jonathan Coe, Michael Morpurgo and Zoë Heller, for only a fiver.
Tags: Bookfest end notes, Bookfest events, famous faces at Bookfest, Guest blogger, Ox-Tales, Oxfam shops and specialist book shops, Oxfam volunteers
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| Friday, September 11, 2009 | 12:04:33 |
