MoL while researching its project Fragments of the Lost Library was struck by how in the old days of book-hunting and physical search bargains were still to be had. With the internet, everyone knows the price. Most paperbacks are available for under one euro. A hardback first edition with dust wrapper is usually worth around 30. Collectible books sell for between 30-100. A few books are worth fabulous sums. The question is why does Hippo Books in Toledo, Ohio consistently try to sell titles which everyone else has listed at a few euros for nearly 400? And on top of that, not even a collectable book or perfect first edition but what it describes as a poor reading copy of an ordinary book nobody particularly wants. (It’s like the beginning of Three Days of the Condor when someone asks why a murder mystery that didn’t sell in its original language has been translated into Turkish but not French, Arabic but not German or Russian, Spanish . . . and five minutes later everyone in the office is dead, except Robert Redford.) So why does Hippo Books advertise a mass-market paperback called Fireside, available elsewhere for next to nothing, at over 1500 euro? (“The best publicist on the West Coast and girlfriend of a star – it all seemed too good to be true. There was just one catch: it was. Now that Kim’s perfect life has imploded she flees to Willow Lake to start over.”) MoL special offer: same title for one thousand, ok, five hundred. MoL hopes to be still alive when you read this . . .