Re: rare books

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@domain.elided>]

I recently used a Web site to locate a couple of books I've been
searching for about 30 years.  The Web site:

http://www.alibris.com

It's a central database containing the collective inventories of some
number of booksellers around the continental U.S. (at least), all in a
browsable form.  Alibris processes the credit-card info (and,
presumably, takes a percentage of the selling price) for the sale and
shipping cost, then contacts the bookseller who actually has the
physical copy of the book you order and has them mail it to you.  My two
books came from different locations, I'm guessing, as one arrived in
about three days and the other in about ten.  

In both cases, I knew the titles of the two books I was looking for, so
I was able to find copies immediately; I don't know how good the site is
for just browsing.

Oh -- some of you may have heard/read me raving about how long I've
spent trying to find one of the books in question before I found this
site: "When Engines Roar," edited by William F. Nolan and Charles
Beaumont.  Published in 1962, it's a collection of 19 non-fiction
articles about motor racing from basically the turn of the century
through the date of publication.  The cover has a picture of a prewar
Alfa single seater, presumably the one driven by Nuvolari in the 1935
German Grand Prix -- of which the book contains an account, written by
Ken Purdy, comparing that drive to Fangio's in 1957.  And best of all,
that wasn't even the best piece in the book; hmm, would that be Denis
Jenkinson's "With Moss at the Mille Miglia?"  Or could it be Randal
Jarrell's magnificent piece that closes the book, "Go, Man, Go!"?  Or
how about "Dark Inheritance," the life and death of Pierre Levegh (whose
Mercedes went off course in the 1955 Le Mans, killing some 80
spectators)?  Or one of the other 15 articles?

I think my favorite part of the book has to be the foreword, where the
two editors whine about how racing just isn't the same any more, it
isn't as raw and exciting as it used to be; oh sure, they say, the cars
are a lot faster, and it's certainly much safer, but it just doesn't
have the appeal of racing in The Good Old Days, when men were men and
race cars were race cars.  That's when I had to check the publication
date...  yep, interesting racing was all over and done with by 1962,
sure enough, and nostalgia ain't what it used to be, neither.

- --Scott Fisher
  Sunnyvale, CA

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