Very cool! Boy does he look different. I wouldn't have expected him to start wearing a bow tie!

Awesome, jonmc. I just got that book, and it's autographed, but I wasn't there for it. An independent bookstore near me had it, and I missed when he showed up. Apparently he signed a stack of them to sell. I haven't started yet, but it'll be interesting comparing notes with you knowing that you're an even bigger fan of his than I am. I can't wait to get started.

I actually first met Ellroy about 17 years ago, right after White Jazz came out, when he did a signing at the strip-mall chain bookstore I worked in at the time. He was a lot less famous then, and had more hair and wore a a Hawaiian shirt. There was less of a turnout and we spent an hour bullshitting and casting the movies of his books. I mentioned this to him at this signing and he vaguely remembered the event, if not me. But he was very cool.

Oh my god, what a great picture. If I were a dude, I would be having a boner right about now.

That's a great picture. "Apparently he signed a stack of them to sell." Authors do that when the manager isn't looking. Once it's written in the store can't send them back.

That depends on the return policy. If the store only returns covers for credit and pulps the books, then signing makes no difference since it is generally on the title page.

Does anyone do cover only for hard cover?

I don't know yet. I've been researching that for almost two hours now. The publishing world is in a state of chaos right now, in the same boat as the music industry in the late 90s and facing technological obsolescence in some critical areas while the price of paper (and shipping it) soars. Also, the online price war between Amazon, WalMart and Target is causing publishers its own unique grief, the possible devaluing of hardcovers in consumers' minds.

Also, who knows what Google has brewing in its backrooms?

Did anyone ask how he spends his day? Forewarned is forearmed.

a_h: As of now, the margin between remaindering and pulping hardbacks continues to favor remaindering, but that margin is decreasing. Conversely, according to this author's blog, the brick-and-mortar bookstores make a bloody fine profit off those remainders. The question is, however, who checks all those books for signed title pages?

] apologies for the OT to all [

Whatever the problems with dead tree books, the hardcovers are like paperbacks but just moreso.

Paying more money to have a bigger, heavier thing that could be half the weight and ideally could be weightless and on my computer screen instead is... Old Thinkerly.

Eating food that's tasty and involves laborious preparation when there's also astronaut food in tubes that contains all the necessary nutrients in the right amounts is also Old Thinkerly.

Actually purely functionally I agree with you. But somehow I like having a bookcase with nice old faded hardcover backs from the beginning of the previous century. When I move I feel right at home as soon as I put in the bookcase with the familiar 'faces'. I attribute that to growing up with bookcases all around; like a goose duckling imprinting on Konrad Lorentz at the moment of hatching.

I attribute that to growing up with bookcases all around; like a goose duckling imprinting on Konrad Lorentz at the moment of hatching.

Metachat: where Nerd meets Science Fiction meets OMG Teh Kyoot!

Authors do that when the manager isn't looking. Once it's written in the store can't send them back.

Really? At our local bookstore, the managers always have a visiting author sign 30 or so books, on purpose. They sell better signed, according to them.

I like having a bookcase with nice old faded hardcover backs from the beginning of the previous century. When I move I feel right at home as soon as I put in the bookcase with the familiar 'faces'.

Couldn't'a said it better myself, and feel the same way. We are human beings with physical bodies, and will always relish our pleasurable interactions with the concrete and tangible world and artifacts made within it.

I do almost all my fiction reading on the go or in bed, so hardcover books are not great for that.

Thank goodness it's not an either/or situation... yet. I would be terribly sad to see physical books become (once again!) something only for the very rich and privileged, and I also have emotional/sentimental/aesthetic passion for real books.

But I've hauled books around and about for thousands of miles since I was 6 years old, and have only the tiniest fraction of paper books I've ever owned, to my deep sadness. It's always been amazing to me that I should so obviously live in an ancestral manse (not necessarily upper-crust!) with 100 rambling rooms, of which about 90 could be filled with books (or even a proper converted Victorian with walls and walls of shelves), because for the most part, there's nothing I'd like better than to stay put in one place, and just collect books... but I've turned out to be this reluctant turtle, constantly on the move, always with my house on my back.

Now that I have e-books, it's the first time I don't have to shed books because of space or relocation, plus, I've been able to read so many books that I couldn't get at all otherwise. Plus, all classics are available for free. And after reading in bed with an e-reader every night for a year and a half, I found myself very distressed that when reading a regular paperback (which now seems incredibly awkward), every time I nod off I completely lose my place and have to spend time trying to relocate where I left off. And having a search function is sweet. I love being able to search the text when I forget a character or how that character entered the picture, or if I begin to have a theory about something, to be able to check back in the text to find occurrences of X.

So, I love books. I've pretty much always loved books, far more than anything else without a pulse. But even more than books, I love reading. I'm lucky to be at this intersection of history that allows me to have both paper and electronic books, so I'll selfishly enjoy that for now, because, yeah, I do think that it's not going to be an option for ordinary people at some point, unless paper can be manufactured from some other source.

I like keeping certain books around. Some to re-read, and others because I like them, something changed in my after reading them, or some other sentimental reasons. Quite frankly, almost nothing we own is necessary, but some of us do things that may not be practical, or even smart, but we still do them just because we can. A house makes no sense when you can live in a high-rise apartment. A vacation to the beach makes no sense when you can just rest at home, and watch a video about the beach. Going to a museum makes no sense when you can look at pictures online. And etc.

As for my autographed book, there's a sticker on the dust jacket proclaiming it an "Autographed Copy", so I imagine it was done with the full knowledge and approval of the store. I can't imagine, with his ego, that James Ellroy would feel like he would have to sign books so they couldn't be returned. I'd never heard of that practiced being done for the reasons mentioned before. That just seems pathetic and sad.