Every year, millions of books are pulped by the book industry’s big distribution companies when they are returned by retail outlets and on-line stores. Last month, we purchased another pallet of "damaged" books from our distributor before they were destroyed.

The majority of returns in the book industry come from Amazon, but small retailers are also forced to send good books to the landfill. Why?

While Amazon and Barnes & Noble receive great rates from the industry’s big distributors, small bookstores are squeezed–their margins are substantially smaller. For a small bookstore, selling a new book is only profitable when you sell it at full price. It’s impossible to compete with Amazon’s prices, and returning unsold stock is the only way to ensure that you aren’t losing money.

We pay to save our books from the landfill to challenge the absurd capitalistic logic forcing booksellers everywhere to destroy perfectly good books. Most major publishers have little physical contact with their stock, but our warehousing experience allows us to offer these books back to our readers at a steep discount. We do this to mitigate large losses and to get radical books into more hands.

So, pick up a few great books cheap while helping us fight back against capitalist profligacy.

All damages are 70% off with coupon code "Damages" until August 1st. https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=195

#books #capitalism #anarchism

Time to read some more of the uplifting political book I've been working on reading. It's called Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer.

I'll see how much I can get through before I become completely outraged and need to take a break. I'm guessing I'll get through maybe 2 pages before that happens. 😆

#books #politics #reading #history #nonfiction #bookstodon

British author and educator Jane Marcet died #OTD in 1858.

Her popular science books were among the first to bring such subjects into the domestic sphere, inspiring a generation of future scientists and thinkers. Her book "Conversations on Chemistry" (1805) served as a foundational text for many, including Michael Faraday, who credited it with sparking his interest in science.

Books by Jane Marcet at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/32323

#books #literature #science

#OTD in 1947. The Diary of a Young Girl is published.

The book was written while Anne Frank was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, & Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Anne's diaries were retrieved by Miep Gies & Bep Voskuijl. Miep gave them to Anne's father, Otto, the family's only survivor, just after the World War II was over.

https://www.annefrank.ch/en/diary

#books #literature

We've had to let go of friends who believe covid is "just a cold" or who deny long covid -- and it hurts.

This is the last day to pre-order and support The Covid Safety Handbook: https://kck.st/3KhdUdS

#covid #COVID19 #kickstarter #books #audiobook #LongCovid