I wonder that too, Jakob. But presumably there are SOME books which are genuinely only going to have a very limited appeal, for example A Catalogue of Patagonian Typewriter Ribbons, 1981-1984 (Volume I: Black). Somebody fascinated by typewriter ribbons may well find it hard to believe that there isn’t a market for more than the 20 copies the publisher thinks it can sell, and maybe it’s the same here. On the other hand, $160! Geez.

I do sometimes wonder whether the pricing of academic books turns into somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with higher prices leading to smaller markets and print runs leading to higher prices… Shock of the Old was a pleasant surprise in this regard, but then it wasn’t from an academic publisher.

I only rarely buy anything published in the US. We usually get the British edition of any given book here, which I’m happy about as I can avoid having to put up with US spelling :) And US titles — I’m still annoyed that in a moment of weakness I bought the US edition of John Ferris’s The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919-1926, which for some reason is called Men, Money and Diplomacy there.

Not being in publishing, I don’t really have a basis to criticise their pricing decisions. But I do wonder how I even found it here. It’s a biggish, quality but definitely non-academic bookshop, and I can’t imagine that any university in Melbourne is using it as a text (and if they are, I’d like to know which subject so I can go along and audit it!) Libraries would order direct, presumably. Academics too (at least I never see any in the history sections of the bookshops I frequent). So who would buy such a book? It’s like the bookshop ordered it in just to taunt me!

Mind you, I have paid more than that for a book before … ah, the pains and pleasures of bibliophilia.