good readin'

The missus has a subscription to the London Review of Books that I frequently intercept before it reaches her. A recent pleasure has been the writing of John Lanchester - a novelist with a talent for writing about finance & economics. Apparently his dad worked in a bank. I am as thankful Lanchester senior's conservative choice of career as I am for that of his son's bohemian one as JL's article on the UK economy included the best explanation of a balance sheet that I have ever read.

Meanwhile a little googlesurfing led me to Helen DeWitt's blog that includes this wonderful offer:

Secondhand Sales

Readers sometimes want to buy copies of The Last Samurai for friends. It's tempting to buy the book "As New" for $1.70 + $3.99 postage rather than for $14.95 with free shipping in an order of $20 or more, especially if there are many, many friends. The author gets nothing on a secondhand sale -- but then, the author would get only $1.12 on the new book. To send the author $1.12 the reader would have to pay an extra $9.24. That's a pretty expensive goodwill gesture.

Goodwill doesn't have to cost that much. PayPal takes 30 cents + 3% on each transaction; if you send the author $1.50 by PayPal she will get $1.15. So only 35 cents of the goodwill gesture goes to a middleman. It would look like highway robbery if we hadn't seen the competition.

I'm not into fiction at the moment but for AU$2, I feel like I've played a small part in allowing Helen DeWitt to continuing writing - and being slightly crazy.