If BookExpo is where new books and dreams are born, then the Chicago International
Remainder & Overstock Book Exposition (CIROBE). is where
they go to die. Bookseller Robert Gray talks on his blog about the big sales expo for
remainder, overstock, and damaged books that’s coming up this week:
I’ll think, as I always do, about the rampant optimism of BookExpo in the spring,
when all is new and every book on the list has the potential to sell through.
"We’re very excited about our fall list," they say. And they should
say that. They should be excited. Every book is a gem at BookExpo, every
book a winner in waiting.Well, maybe not every book.
Still, nobody expects a book to die needlessly. And yet they do, every day, die ugly
deaths and pass through to the underworld, Hades, or, in modern English, The
Bargain Table.Maybe it’s not a cattle drive at this stage, after all. Maybe it’s a boat trip across
the River Styx.Charon, the old man who ferries the dead to the underworld.
CIROBE, the show that ferries dead books to bargain book world.