Word: starrs
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...knows about quality, too. A student buying a $25 set of Thackeray wants to know if the paper will last well. "Oh, the paper will last longer than you'll last," says Mr. Starr. The student starts making out a check (Mr. Starr never asks for identification with checks--surprisingly unbusinesslike) and asks, "Starr Book Shop?" "Yeah -- INC," Mr. Starr spells out, with something like subdued pride in his voice...
Another time, Mr. Starr sold a first edition of Emerson's early poems to a New York dealer for $75. He thought he was getting a pretty good price, since the auction listings had that edition priced at about $50. But the dealer sold the book to another dealer for $600, and he turned around and sold it to Harvard for $2000. "That's because it was a presentation copy to Henry Ware," says Mr. Starr. "He was Emerson's minister, and he almost convinced Emerson to go into the ministry." Mr. Starr is full of biographical information about American...
...thing Mr. Starr really likes about the business is that he never knows what new bargains he's going to find from day to day, or where he's going to find them. Somebody just calls up from an estate or library sale, and he goes out to take a look. One day he went to a sale at the Roxbury annex of the Boston Public Library. When he came back he told his brother, "I bought 30,000 books, and I bought the building, too." "Are you crazy?" said his brother. The building was the Fellows Athenaeum, where Edward...
...where it is. "A history of music by Lang?" asks one woman. "I used to have a few but I sold them," he says. "Do you have anything on horses?" says a young man. "Downstairs, all the way to the back and to your left," Mr. Starr answers. Does he know where every book is? "Of course." How does he remember? "You have to have a good memory in this business...
...book business may be just another business, but for Mr. Starr it's the only one. Not just because it enabled him to put two kids through college, either. "It's the most interesting business you could possibly be in," he says...