[Buddha-l] A candid question

[Franz Metcalf]

MIchael,

Joanna has solved your problem in the way I was going to suggest. The 
public library is one of America's two or three greatest (or is it 
only?) gifts to the world. And I'll add that, as the estimable Winston 
King is dead, we needn't feel too guilty about denying him royalties on 
his work. (Being an author and a father, I ought to be more enduringly 
possessive of copyright, but that just seems wrong to me.)

As for your explicit question of how much King's book is "worth," how 
much is any book worth? I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of 
Books, Saturday. Quite the bibliophile's shindig. But I noticed that 
the largest crowds and longest lines were in the children's book 
section (being a dad, I notice such things now). People had to take 
numbers just for the privilege of standing in line for an hour to have 
Julie Andrews Edwards sign their piece of pulped wood. Aside from the 
cult of personality, there was also a real fetishization of the object, 
and not just among kids. I couldn't help but think the Buddha would 
have kept an ironic distance.

Speaking of ironic: I'll now return to researching my Buddhist novel.

Franz