Book finding [was Re: Obscure languages]

Quoting Adam Walker <dreamertwo@...>:

> >From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>
> >Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:44:23 -0500
> >
>   Most large universities have *some*
> >grammars available, but it's also possible to find them in
> >some (better than average) used bookstores. Like, just the
> >other day I picked up a grammar of Central Siberian Yupik
> >at the bookstore, and neglected to buy grammars on at least
> >two other native languages that I saw there.
>
> It is especially helpful to look in used bookstores near said
> universities. *remebering one such delight near UNT*  Foolish
> students tend to dump textbooks after finishing their courses.
Indeed. Powell's, where I got that book, is unbelievable! They
easily have the largest linguistics section I've seen in any
bookstore anywhere (probably around 750 books).  What's more, they
also have a great Antique book-collection.  They have a copy of
first edition (1792) copy of Macartney's mission to China ; an
18th-century bilingual Greek-Latin edition of Longinus' _Peri
Hypsous_ (On the Sublime); a late 16th century German fencing
manual; a bilingual Greek-Latin copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
from 1683 (IIRC); an early 18th century copy of Lucretius' _De Rerum
Natura_ ... and those are just the ones that were under 500 dollars!
I seem to remember they also had a mid-16th-century copy of
speeches given by St. John Chrysostom that went for about 4800
dollars.

(I collect antique books, so these naturally interested me.  My most
recent acquisition was a nearly perfect condition, 1873 edition of
the Song of Roland in Old French with notes in German -- for 50
cents! I don't know *what* the Seminary library was thinking when
they got rid of that book.)

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III