I have a New Yorker cartoon pinned to the wall of my office. It shows two large and forbidding gentlemen looming at the entrance to a bookstore. A frightened clerk is telling the owner, "There's a Mr. Barnes and a Mr. Noble here to see you."

I've been told I'm not the only bookseller who clipped and posted that particular cartoon. All of us ­ all of us who are still in business anyway ­ hear Mr. Barnes and Mr. Noble knocking. And Mr. Amazon Dot Com and Mr. Barnesandnoble Dot Com.

I've just read you the opening paragraphs of a speech I gave Wednesday to the local chapter of Soroptimists at the Mendocino Hotel. I had no idea what I was going to say until I sat down to collect my notes. What poured out was the sad story of bookselling today.

It's ironic, isn't it, that the first mega-business on the Internet (after pornography, of course) would be a service that sells books? Amazon.com, which began in 1995 with book sales of half a million dollars, now sells about $360 million dollars of books a year.

By one calculation, stock market investors have invested $72 into Amazon for every dollar's worth of books it sells. The Economist noted that Amazon may become "a $10 billion business with the profits of a corner shop." It has yet to do anything but lose piles of money. But it has all the money it needs to expand its marketing efforts.

I heard on the KZYX news this week that Wal-mart is working on plans to open a super "category killer" store at Todd's Point in Fort Bragg, where Highways One and 20 meet. I wonder how Racine's and Noyo's Ark and Fort Bragg Tire feel about that one?

But enough of this sorrowful gloom and doom. We're still here, hunkered down in our bricks and mortar stores, or perhaps our virgin redwood and rusty lug bolts stores, with our books, and our books on tape, our literary opinions, and our thoughts on the difference between the Audubon Wildflower guides and the Peterson wildflower guides. And there are differences, let me tell you.

We're still having fun out here in independent bookstore land. One way I know this is I'm not the only person who finds publisher catalogs hilarious.

The other day I was paging through the Spring catalog of a publisher who does a lot of sports and outdoors titles. I was considering whether to purchase a copy of a book on left-handed fly fishing. In the 15 seconds I had to think about it I asked myself how many left-handed fly fishermen visit Mendocino.

Then I looked down at the picture of the cover and realized the fisherman is casting right handed. Ooops.

All sorts of unusual things appear in book catalogs. Donna Bettencourt has collected some of these, just for chuckles.

Jonathan Hurdle this year will have a book titled, Walking Austria's Alps Hut to Hut. Gotz Blume has written Advanced Bach Flower Therapy.

There's Hot Sex: How to Do It by Tracy Cox, and Full Moon by Michael Light. Donna is not making this up. The Crossword Murder by Nero Blanc. Principles of Running by Amby Burfoot. Mountain Bike Like a Champion by Ned Overend. Why does this remind me of jokes I used to tell in fifth grade?

On small things like these hang what remains of my sanity. I have to laugh.

Some years ago my brother took over a small deli and fish counter in Mendocino. He told me there's a war for shelf space in his cooler. The early beer man comes in and places his beer brands at eye level, labels forward, and pushes the other guy's beers to the back or down on a lower shelf. Then the next beer guy comes in and reverses everything.

We don't hear much about this war. Where's Congress on this issue?

And then there's the psychic dimension. Over and over again I have discovered that if I absent-mindedly pull a rather obscure book off the shelf and think about it for a minute, it won't be long before someone comes in and brings that very book up to the counter. I have the power to change the world just by touching a book. It's awesome.

This trick does not work if you will it to happen. It has to happen unconsciously, innocently. The Book Goddess does not like to be manipulated.

Other people have reported the same phenomenon, so I know it works. It's one of the eternal mysteries of bookselling.

And here are two new books that may be of special interest to KZYX listeners:

Matthew Lasar has published his authoritative history of Pacifica radio, titled Pacifica Radio, The Rise of an Alternative Network. As Pacifica celebrates fifty years of free-form listener-sponsored radio, its flagship station KPFA in Berkeley is mired in controversy over the firing of the station manager and news director by the Pacifica Board.

Richard Goodman of Mendocino has written a first-hand look into the life of Karl Terzaghi, the greatest innovator in civil engineering history. The book is titled Karl Terzaghi, The Engineer as Artist. Terzaghi led a fascinating life and pioneered techniques still in use today. I'm grateful to Richard for opening a literary window into a fascinating world I knew nothing about.

Aired Thursday April 22, 1999 at 9:30 am and Sunday April 25, 1999 at 10:55 am