If you own a bookstore, you call him a customer.
For years, my good friend Prof. Richard Tomback has told me how he does not own a copy of his magnum opus; A comparative Semitic lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic languages. He would have liked to purchase one, but the publisher's stock was depleted decades ago and the few copies available online were priced in the heavens up to $1400.
This week I discovered a copy in a library we acquired and had the pleasure this morning of united the book with the man who made it all happen.
What a story!
ReplyDeleteA shadkhen and a book a moykher sforim all wrapped in one -- not seen since the days of Mendele, when Alter Yakenhas, Mendele's book dealing friend, tried to arrange a match (this is is Fishke der krumer).