Bookseller Profile

Abebooks' uniqueness is our network of independent booksellers who work with us to provide the most diverse selection of rare, used and out-of-print books on the Internet. Take a moment and meet our member booksellers from around the globe. It is these sellers, with their experience, commitment and love of the used and out-of-print book business who help all our buyers find that treasure they've been looking for.

How did you get started in bookselling?
I had my first job in a used bookstore right out of college in 1988, where I made $3.00 an hour. My partner, Sean Carlson, worked in the used bookstore I worked in when he saw how much fun I was having.

Bookselling is not the easiest way to make a living. What keeps you doing it?
We like to work for ourselves. We like always having too much to read. We opened our retail store, Pistil Books & News, in 1993, andclosed the store in April, 2001 (after rent hike) in order to concentrate on internet sales only, where there is the greater possibility of making a reasonable living. Now we work at home.

What is your specialty? How did you choose it?
We are stocking more and more non-fiction and scholarly books. We find these sell well on the web to the many students and professors who use Abebooks.com and they are often very interesting.

What are your favourite books, or your recommendations?
What books have you read more than once?
Sean likes anything by Noam Chomsky, Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, and Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird. Amy's favorite authors are Paul Bowles, Margaret Atwood, and Alan Watts. They are all excellent writers and Interesting people.

Do you have any legendary stories you tell about incidents with your store or as a bookseller?
We have a store zine, Pistil Prose, which always includes stories from our store journal, called "Retail Hell." It's very popular. We were once robbed by an inept criminal and that story can be found in the Crime issue of Pistil Prose. One story that stands out is of a woman who came into the store about two hours before closing on Christmas Eve 1999. She pulled big piles of books from the shelves making stacks (and making me worried)-really good stuff like Chomsky and philosophy and history. Finally she had about a thousand dollars worth of books picked out. It turned out she was stockpiling books for Y2K. She bought them all.

Why do you like these books so much?
Chomsky is incredible because he is a brilliant linguist in his own right, having revolutionized the science. He's taken his position in acadamia and used the same clear vision he has applied in his chosen science and turned it to the very messy and biased world of international politics. His books are superbly well documented and as he is not a paid pundit and has no political career to pursue, his analysis are trustworthy and founded in concrete. Abbie Hoffman's work, Steal this Book is the practical (and fun) yippie respose to what Chomsky has to say about the state of the world and the very heavy responsibility the US, and the United State's citizenry has for the global spread of military imperialism, military hardware and state terror. And then The Painted Bird is the fictionalized autobiography of Kozinski's trip through Eastern Europe as a gypsy orphan, encountering all the horror and depraved beauty humanity has to offer.

Do you collect anything besides books?
We have a small natural history collection: beaver skull, crocodile head, butterfly collection, etc. I also collect "Lost Cat" posters.

What is the most unusual book you ever bought?
See many of the unusual books we have on our website in the "Museum of Weird Books." Some titles include "TV Sheep Vet,"and "Face Lifting by Exercise" (good illustrations!).

Amy Candiotti, Pistil Books Onlin

The views of the author, expressed above, are not necessarily those of the Advanced Book Exchange