Topic: McTell Book

[dave stott]

anyone have any idea as to when it will be available in the US???


Dave

[Bunker Hill]

Bloomsbury Press have a New York office

http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/Authors/default.asp?id=615&cf=0

but neither author or nor title are listed. Maybe they are happy Harry Potter to bother about McTell. 

[Stuart]

anyone have any idea as to when it will be available in the US???
Dave

Go to WWW.Bookfinder.com and type in the ISBN: 0747565600

Several sellers will come up. Powell's Books is the only U.S. bookseller. None are inexpensive. Perhaps the thing to do is for us to send the  Bloomsbury Office (thanks for the link, BH) a message and ask them directly. Maybe sufficient interest will motivate them to distribute the book in the U.S.--hopefully sooner rather than later. 

One of our stateside posters ordered it from the U.K. (I assume) and it arrived in about 10 days.

Added: I couldn't find an e-mail address at the BloomsburyUSA.com site, but here is the one I found at their main U.K. site:

customerservices@bloomsbury.com

[dj]

I ordered it from amazon.uk.  It took 6 days from order to delivery.  I haven't looked lately, but when I ordered, the book was heavily discounted, so even with a shipping charge and the terrible exchange rate it cost about what a hardcover book would cost in the US.

By the way, I'd highly recommend the book.  It's a well-written, entertaining read which takes you through the last 150 years of Georgia's history.  It's written for a general audience, so don't expect a lot of painstaking dissection of McTell's music, though this is usually adequately covered - if I could change one thing (besides including better illustrations and a map of Georgia, both of which were probably beyond the author's control), it would be to add a little better discussion of McTell's Decca recordings, which are pretty quickly glossed over.   

[Stuart]

I sent an e-mail to Bloomsbury's UK office. Here's their reply:

"Dear Stuart,

Many thanks for contacting us. Unfortunately we do not hold the US
rights to this book, and are unaware of a US publisher. We are sorry we could not be more helpful."

I guess the options at the present time are obvious.

[Orb Mellon]

Have any of y'all read the the new Michael Gray Book about Willie McTell? Is it great, just OK or blah?

I'm thinking of buying it but since it isn't currently distributed stateside it's a bit costly with importing cost, a weak dollar and all that.

Thanks.

OM

[waxwing]

Thought I would tuck your query over here, Orb, where we've already got two and a half pages on the subject.-G-

All for now.
John C.

[onewent]

Orb, the book is 'great' .. If you have interest in pre-war music and U.S. history, I'd rate this a 'must have' .. one of the best I've read in the genre, and just a plain good read otherwise..I bought it off of Amazon for 30-something, if I remember, and took about a week to arrive, and about two days to read, it was so compelling..

[RobBob]

I went looking for Michael Gray's Hand Me My Travelin Shoes and found copies from around $50 to into the thousands of dollars.  I know the dollar is tanking but good grief!!  Have I got the blues now!

Rob

[uncle bud]

Hi RobBob,

Have you tried www.amazon.co.uk? There's no US edition of the book yet, so you need to order from the UK, but it's pretty reasonable, even with the tanking greenback I'd guess.

[dj]

it's pretty reasonable

That's easy for you Canadians to say, with your strong dollar.    Amazon UK has the book for ?16.25, which is about $32.50 US.  Add shipping and the total goes up to over $40.  It's not cheap, but the book is worth it.
 

[uncle bud]

Well, I'm not going to feel bad about a strong Canadian dollar. And I'm sorry to say I'm not going to feel too much sympathy either when every single American publisher continues to gouge Canadians relentlessly on book prices, despite the dramatic difference in the value of the dollar today.  Not a dig at anyone here -- just annoyance at the conspiring publishers. $40 for a 450-page hardcover is pretty standard in Canada.

[Stuart]

Finally ordered it on Nov. 5 from a UK bookseller that I located via Bookfinder.com. It cost about $32.00 + $11 S&H (USD) and was delivered today (Nov. 15).

[RobBob]

I too got a copy for $41 and change from a seller through amazon UK.  the book looks real good and have it in m queue for reading.  I have gotten quite taken with David Fulmer's Dying Crapshooter's Blues, which is set in 1920's Atlanta.  He has also written mysteries set in early 1900's new Orleans with characters like Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morten in them.  Contrivances?  Perhaps but he gets a good feel for the times and the music.

Rob

[outfidel]

from the latest Roots & Rhythm catalogue

HAND ME MY TRAVELIN' SHOES
In Search Of Blind Willie McTell by Michael Gray

BOOK $59.95
Back in stock. British Import. Hardbound, 432 pages, counts as 7 cds for shipping

Blind Willie McTell was one of the most gifted musical artists of his generation, with an exquisite voice and a sublime talent for the twelve-string guitar. As Bob Dylan wrote, "nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell"--yet his repertoire was infinity wider than that. Why, then, did he drift in and out of the public eye, being `rediscovered' time and again through chance meetings; and why, until now, has so little been written about the life of this extraordinary man? In this personal and moving odyssey into a lost world of early blues music, a vulnerable black population and more, Michael Gray peels back the many layers of a tragic, occasionally shocking but ultimately uplifting story. He gives us an intimate portrait of a remarkable man, showing how his life connects to the tumultuous sweep of history. Getting the story is part of the story itself, and Gray's quest for facts and details reveals that little may have changed in the Deep South, even today. Part biography, part travelogue, part social history, this is an atmospheric, unforgettable tale.