Duels at Dawn: The Second Book of Essays

From the Introduction: You have economic hard times to thank for this book. I am by profession a bookseller. In 2007, a friend suggested a newsletter as a way of enhancing book sales. I think she had monthly specials, promo sheets and upcoming new titles in mind, but I was too dense for that. Instead I wrote on topics of my own fancy. The first two years, 2007-9, when the newsletter appeared monthly were, well, dreadful. The week that Venus went retrograde in March, 2009, with the stock mar...