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Buying a Book Trivia: The Story of Those Bookworms

author:Zenhon Koseki
Buying a Book Trivia: The Story of Those Bookworms

This is a person with a book fetish, telling the story of buying books by himself or others: some are collectors, and they have a lot of income in editions and editions; Some are interested in certain categories and have gained a lot in certain categories; Some are freewheeling, as long as they like it, it is good, and there are even those who are shy in their pockets, and they read in bookstores and book stalls. I don't want to leave all day long......

Bookworms and scholars, no one can do without each other, and they often fight wits and courage; But what they bought and didn't sell was "fine", and what impressed the bookworm was not only his own little "excellent Jiluo", but also many shrewd and humane bookstore owners and guys, who were called book friends and even teachers by them. Many literati and scholars formed an indissoluble bond with books under the care of bookstall owners or bookstore owners.

Bookworms are almost always "poor", but their wealth is staggering: they tend to be rich and have a lot of money, but they often go into debt to get by. As a result, second-hand bookstores and second-hand book stalls have become their paradises. After many twists and turns, I found a book I had been looking for for a long time at a fair price in a used book stall, and the joy jumped on the page......

People who come to Chongqing are often troubled by the old and new names of the streets. Of course, the new name has its conveniences, but if you only say "Zhongzheng Road" when you hire a rickshaw, then I'm afraid you won't be very popular. Because Zhongzheng Road is not short, the drivers are too lazy to ask which section of Zhongzheng Road you want to go to, but the old name is more accurate. However, a newcomer who does not know the "characteristics" of the old names of Chongqing streets is often a little troubled; For example, he would stand on the mouth of "Xiao Liangzi" and ask, "Where is Xiao Liangzi?" "Because the old names of Chongqing streets were often inscribed in sections on a straight line, unlike other streets with only one name. Judging from the old names of these streets, it can be seen that the streets in Chongqing were also quite "specialized" in the old days. For example, "Chicken Street", "Luoma Market", "Iron Street" and so on, just by looking at the names, you can imagine the special personality of these streets in the past.

I don't know if there was a street in Chongqing where used bookshops were concentrated in the old days, but according to the small section of Lianheng Xiangyu's second-hand bookshop group in Chongqing today, this may be the old book street in the past. However, the old name of this section of the street was "Mi Tingzi". The second-hand bookstore group here has a total of only six or seven units (including stalls), which is really not much, but it is not much, but it seems that there is no second second-hand book market with so many units concentrated in Chongqing today. Of course, it is not that there are the most used books here, and there are more used bookstores than the total number of used books in all units here, and I think there are no more used bookstores in Chongqing, but there are so many units that they are concentrated and have become a small section of the "used book street", so I am afraid that there is no other than that.

As for the large and small used bookstores that are alone - or stationery and used book shops, they can be seen almost everywhere inside and outside Chongqing today, but it must also be explained: whether it is "Mi Tingzi" or other separate used book shops, old books are indeed old books, but they cannot be compared with the so-called "old books" in our minds before the Anti-Japanese War. In 1930, newspaper novels printed in Hong Kong or Shanghai (in fact, there were also copies on clay paper were also on sale) have also become rare treasures. Old books that meet the standards of the so-called "old books" in the past are naturally not absent, but they are too few to say proportional. The difference can be said to be about one or two percent, and it is a line-bound book on a wooden board (which can be said to be "old" compared to the one-fold version), but this is the majority of the astrology of medical divination, and I have seen two wood-board line-bound books in two places—one is "The Diary of Zeng Wenzheng" and the other is "Poetry and Rhyme"—which the bookstore owner regarded as a strange commodity, because these two were outside of the astrology of medical divination.

For example, a young man from the occupied area entered a certain university here, and he came with nothing to lose, and now at least a few reference books must be bought, so he can go to those old bookstores to see, as long as he is not afraid of being expensive, he can buy a "Comprehensive English-Chinese Dictionary" published ten years ago - this is the best English dictionary that can be bought here and now. For example, if a writer plans to "collect" a little old material casually, and spend so many days of hard work, going up and down the city, uphill and downhill, and sweating all over his body, he can always get a little bit of something.

It's not an exaggeration, these second-hand bookstores sometimes have some "precious" books. The original books in foreign languages, which were very specialized and profound, would also be lost in the pages of newspaper books, and a friend even found a Greek classic with English annotations, which aroused his interest in learning Greek. But it's a matter of encounter, but not wanted. Some of the original books in English or French, although they are only a few volumes, and they are not rare books, but the picture on the title page seems to indicate that they are the old things of such and such a university or such and such an academic institution before the war. How such a book has traveled thousands of miles, and how it has landed in an old bookstore, it really can't make people sigh when you imagine; Although such a book is not valued at home, in another sense, it can really be regarded as an "old book" with the qualification of "treasure"? The gratifying and the strange thing is that there are more and more books like this in recent times, and you can often come across them. This is a trivial matter, if you think about it, but it makes people feel worrying and pathetic.

Finally, let's talk about the price of used books. First of all, when Guiliu fell, some people went into exile in Guiyang, and the travel expenses were not continued. Sold a C "Ciyuan" for 10,000 yuan - this is still a hurry to sell it cheaply, after Dushan Kefu, someone bought a newspaper copy of "The Complete Works of Lu Xun" in Chongqing, and bid 25,000 - this is also stained with the light of the current situation. After reading these two "transactions", the current price of old books can be slightly summarized, in a word, although the current price of old books cannot catch up with rice cloth, let alone high-end cosmetics, it is amazing enough; Today, a small used bookstore in Chongqing, in terms of its price, who dares to say that it does not have millions; If it is calculated in terms of the old currency, it can sit on a hundred thousand yuan! But today it is nothing more than a white newspaper and a lead print on paper from Dowling.

The increase in the price of used books seems to have nothing to do with supply and demand. The price of used books follows the price of food, and there is also a small story to remember. Someone saw a "Comprehensive English-Chinese Dictionary" (pocket book) in a shop in "Mi Tingzi", the price was 2,600 yuan, and he couldn't afford it, so he went to see it again after two days, but it had risen to 3,000 yuan. When asked why it had risen by 400 more, he replied: "The price of grain has risen in the past few days!" "Books are spiritual food, and it seems natural that the price of books follows the price of food. However, there is another principle for the owner of a second-hand bookstore in Chongqing to calculate the price of his goods, that is, according to the paper (white newspaper or Dowling paper) and the number of pages of the book, even if it is a very irrelevant book, as long as the paper is good and the number of pages is large, the price must be considerable, which is simply selling paper!

This is really a new page in history since the existence of the second-hand bookstore. For such "realism", the authority of the version can only shake his head and sigh. Therefore, the people who run the old bookstore in Chongqing today are by no means the people who ran the Liuli Factory in Beiping and came to Qingge in Shanghai. Today is a "great" era of "realism", and the vast majority of people who run used bookstores in Chongqing today are for a small "realistic" purpose. In the old days, there were still people who sat in the old bookstore and read books for a long time, but today they are gone; If there are such good scholars today, it is not in the second-hand bookstore, but in the "new bookstore". However, although the content of the used bookstore has changed, from the point of view that "if there is no one in the market, then I will ask for it", the used bookstore in Chongqing today is still a "used bookstore", but the owner is just an "old" book in the real sense. It can be said that the old bookstore has also been dyed with wartime colors, which is also one of the aspects of "Chongqing today". (Paradigm)

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