Hmmm... I agree with Laurin666 though --if the NBA (Net Book Agreement) still existed in the UK (it fell apart in the 90's) then bigger booksellers simply wouldn't be able to undercut smaller independent bookshops. And, I suspect, more would survive.

I still step into literally every bookshop I pass on the street; be it a secondhand bookshop (independent, Oxfam, etc) or Waterstones. I don't check my phone to see if I could get it cheaper online. If it's the book I want I buy it. However, I'm not on the high street that often any more.

Nobody posting here is a normal book buyer though. We'll pick up a Hb in a store and not buy it because it's a second impression. The problem is normal buyers are not buying on the high street. Overall, I don't really have a problem (in some respects) with the high street bricks & mortar stores disappearing --provided the replacement is better. It isn't.

BH

Sorry, am I the only one permanently exacerbated by the UK (the world's?) biggest bookselling site? Amazon is in danger of losing, utterly, any credibility, whatsoever, as a reputable bookseller; if it hasn't already. It seems to esteem low price over literally everything else. Nielsen's is another one, with its spurious book data (supplied to eBay sellers) e.g. The Silmarillion: published "31/12/1977". What is this garbage?

I type "fall arthur tolkien" & it finds the standard Hb. Note the listing, that Amazon have assigned, is just the title ("The Fall of Arthur") as you'd expect; the search that comes up is actually "fall arthur tolkien". So Amazon is doing a good job of guiding silly old me, who can't search properly... Oh, hold on: if I'm being shown the search for "fall arthur" why is "The Fall of Arthur (Deluxe Edition)" not showing up in this search!? Surely it should be showing me everything with the words "fall" and "arthur"? Do they want me to find the damn book or not?!

You know, if the service we were getting was actually better than what Amazon has utterly destroyed (i.e. a diverse book market), it would be justified; call it progress. But what we have now is poor, poor, poor. When I search on Abebooks too all I'm seeing now is atrociously listed books; & these are overwhelming the small minority of decent quality booksellers. Then there's HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world; can't run a website. The market is totally broken...

Old man rant over.

BH

What else can you say? It's why we have this wonderful "The Wonders of..." thread!

EDIT: I guess this is the price they were looking for:
Tolkien Children of Hurin Deluxe Signed Limited Edition VERY RARE (Buy-it-now: £475)

BH

The cover's up:

BH

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  SILM 2013 Cover.jpg (22.69 KB)

Really? The Deluxe doesn't come up on Amazon.co.uk when I search for "fall arthur tolkien" --only the standard Hb is coming up. (Am I missing something obvious here?)

Is BD still cheaper anyway (--at £45 inc. postage)?

BH