The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds

Welcome to ReadInk (rhymes with "Dead Ink"), now in our 29th year of putting interesting books into the hands of interested people. **** Although I occasionally lapse into the "royal we" voice, ReadInk is just me, from one end of the pipeline to the other: buying, cataloging, customer service, shipping, you name it. Nothing here is automated, and every order or inquiry gets my prompt, personal attention. **** In describing a book's physical condition, I employ standard book-grading terminology (Good/Very Good/Fine, with various in-between gradations as appropriate) and do my best to avoid both excessive jargon and overly-finicky detail. My goal is always to present a faithful impression of a book's condition and appearance; significant flaws are individually noted, or if too numerous are succinctly summarized. **** Books are more than just physical objects, however: they are also intellectual/information vessels, and in almost every case I also include some information about a book's content in my listing, even if it's only a carefully chosen quotation from the dust jacket copy. (This may sound like a small thing, but take a look sometime and you'll see how amazingly few sellers bother with this, especially in the case of older fiction, which is one of my specialties.) **** I take great care (and pride) in my packaging of books for shipment; I figure it's my responsibility to ensure that each book I send out will withstand the rigors of the U.S. Postal System, and will reach its new owner in the same condition as advertised. (A sturdy box or an unbendable package is always involved.) **** That's all there is to ReadInk: just a guy who has loved books all my life (perhaps to excess) and entered the trade in my "middle years" to see what I could make of it. And I'm still finding out. **** To view my inventory exclusively, head over to my website -- www.readinkbooks.com. ---- Howard Prouty, prop.…