Christmas reading — prices up but bargains are there

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 21

Christmas reading — prices up but bargains are there

If you’re an occasional book buyer and want to get Aunt Minnie something nice to read for Christmas, don’t gulp too hard when you see the price.

Swallow your surprise and shell out a few extra dollars, or get your favourite relative a library card.

Even libraries aren’t the safety valve they once were. Their book-buying budgets are limited, ’too. They can buy fewer highpriced books to meet the demand from more readers.

There are ways to get around the price rises — bargain bins, second-hand shops, and paperbacks. Yet some paperbacks cost nearly as much as hardco. er books did a few years ago.

Booksellers say prices are not as outlandish as they may seem. Despite high inflation overseas, prices have pretty much followed inflated wages. Maybe so, but many New Zealand publishers have kept prices at a lower level for everything from colonial tales to “put me on the table and look r.t me” books. Those books aside, you can still find quite a few good buy's outside the bargain bins. Shop around and do some comparing. You may not find what you want cheaper, but you will find some surprises.

Mario Puzo’s “Fools Die” was the rage of the book world last Christmas because it had sold for so much money. This, Christmast, it is out in pink paperback at $4.95. The hardcover edition is being remaindered in the city at the same price, and one second-hand store has a like-new hardcover copy for .$2.

M. M. Kaye’s publishers are trying to cash in on "The Far Pavilions” success of last year by issuing a 20-year-old novel by the author — “Shadow of the Moon” — under a cover strikingly similar to the “Pavilions” cover, and billing the new-old book as a “triumphant new best-seller” at $12.95. In America, where mass market paperbacks are much cheaper, “The Far Pavilions” is going for $2.95. All paperbacks in a “New York Times” bestseller list were from $2.50 to $2.95. Because they can be produced en masse and are expected to sell the same way, some books arriving here for the Christmas trade are reasonably priced. “Sophie's Choice,” a

hefty novel by William Styron and the top seller in America for nearly three months this year at $12.95, is selling in a quality British edition at the same price.

“The Vicar of Christ” is only $2 more than its American edition, and going by bulk could have been a lot more.

Then again, a popular travel book like Paul Theroux’s “The Old Patagonian Express” sold for $11.95 in America and is $19.95 here. Even some second-rate thrillers — the kind you don’t know what to do with once the thrill has gone — are approaching the $l5 and $2O marks.

A recent price list of 18 books received for review by “The Press” showed an average price of $2O for new fiction and non-fic-tion. That excluded an unsual volume for $93.95

(“The Operas of Benjamin Britten”). Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror” .is more than $lO dearer in this country than it was in America.

Anthologies are sometimes the best value if you haven’t read the books, or want to read

them again. In the Heinemann editions, you can get four Ludlums, five Le Carres, four Mary Stewarts, s.ix Eric Amblers, five Agatha Christies, and so on, for $11.95.

That price drops to $6.95 where those editions are being remaindered. Paperback blockbusters can be as expensive as $7.75 (a Leon Uris) or as cheap as $1.90 (an old Robert Ruark). “The Women’s Room” costs $5.75, and a Jackie Collins costs $4.95.

Over in New Zealand books, you can get a quality paperback of Maurice Gee’s "P.L.U.M.8.” for $4.95 from Oxford University Press, Wellington. The “A.A. Book of the New Zealand Countryside” is still only $12.95, with the “A.A. Road Atlas” at $9.95.

Other books which could justifiably cost more are the new Peter Mclntyre book of paintings and “Pictures of Southern New Zealand,” both $25. The “National Parks of New Zealand” is cheap at $10.95, as are some of the other favourite photo books like “New Zealand

In Colour” ($8.95) and “Unspoiled New Zealand, South Island” ($8.95). ’’Old Christchurch,” which seemed fairly expensive when it was issued, now seems almost a steal at $l6. “The Port Hills of Christchurch” is another, at $13.50. Cut-price art books, war books and cookbooks are big favourites where tables of remaindered volumes are displayed. You can get the complete works of Raphael or Rembrandt, reduced from $72 to $34.98, or the art of Walt Disney, down from $17.71 to $5.98. The "Larousse Encyclopedia of the Animal World” is

going for $25.98; it used to be $6O. Among the novels, you can find the American hardcover edition of John Fowles’s “Daniel Martin.” in paperback now but remaindered for $3.98.

This spring, the “Diaries of Evelyn Waugh” were published in paperback at nearly $lO a copy. On a remainder table is the hardcover edition, down from $19.55 to $6.98.

“Bacall: By Myself” in $15.95 in some places, $8.98 in others. “Nabokov: His Life in Part” is down from $17.65 to $5.98. So keep looking. Your Aunt Minnie may be in luck, after all.

Ba-

STAN DARLING