I want Philogelos, the ancient Greek joke book, but I can’t find it anywhere! There are a couple of partial copies online, none in my state’s library system, and the only ones for sale I can find online are either not in English or about a billion dollars.
To show you what I’m missing, here’s a joke from it (from the Greek.):
#234. A man with bad breath asked his wife: “Madame, why do you hate me?” And she said in reply: “Because you love me.”
I work on ancient languages, and so many of the standard scholarly reference books are long, long out of print, this sort of thing happens to me all the time. I have designated book money, so the high prices aren’t necessarily what kills me-- it’s the fact that so many books are simply not available on the open market!
For the Philogelos, I found a used Teubner listed online for about $70 plus shipping, but that’s in German, and not especially cheap.
I think for my part it’s Athena punishing me for not taking Greek at uni and opting for the easier options like Latin and various English-language ancient literature courses. (And ultimately abandoning the whole discipline for History.) Damn grudge holding Olympians!
There’s a book on the East India Company called The Honourable Company which appears to be about the only fairly comprehensive overview of the EIC and their activities- but it’s out of print and completely unavailable anywhere, as far as I can tell.
Well, I might as throw this one in here since it’s a recent loss - To The New Generation (К новому поколению), a collection of essays and speeches by Nikolai Bukharin. Bought it in Russia when I was in St. Petersburg, and it got a bad case of mold so I finally had to throw it out. Never got to read it, and all the websites I’ve found it on indicate they don’t have any in stock.
I was there when Ellison first started soliciting stories for his new anthology. A good friend of mine sold him the very first story bought for the book. I’ve been watching the progress closely for 38 years.
What don’t I know about what’s changed?
Anyway, the book I want is the Gnome Press trade paperback edition of Clifford Simak’s Cosmic Engineers. Not available anywhere from anyone at any price.
I don’t doubt your Ellison-qualifications but thanks for getting into them anyway. I’d never heard of it, Googled it, found some dubious claim that he still wants to publish it, and mentioned it. I thought it was equivalent to hope. The end!
Back in the late 60s I had a book called *See the Merino Standing There with His Long Hair. *It apparently was originated by the *Harvard Lampoon. *I’m finding reference to it via Google, but no way to find the book itself.
Makes one want to start a press.
I’d never heard of it, Googled it, found some dubious claim that he still wants to publish it, and mentioned it. I thought it was equivalent to hope. The end!