Shocked and appalled!

I will be taking a class this summer called "Queens of Crime", studying British women mystery writers between the wars. We were supposed to read, inter alia, Gaudy Night. I have just received an email from the instructor announcing a change in the syllabus. In a shocking display of ignorance by the publishing world, it seems that Gaudy Night is out of print!! That is just so wrong.

That is truly appalling! I would never have expected any of the Lord Peter books to go out of print, and certainly not Gaudy Night. What are you reading instead?

Whose Body?. I'd rather she'd chosen another of the Wimsey-Vane books, but, who knows? Maybe they're out of print, too!

Maybe. I like Whose Body, but for a course, it would be nice to have one with a little more depth to it.

Am surprised it's out of print, but am also a bit surprised--unless it's a huge lecture course--that the class doesn't soldier on with cheap used copies which aren't that hard to procure. Plenty of classes rely on out of print material.

> 5
cheap used copies which aren't that hard to procure

But they are hard to procure. We have very good used bookstores here, and I haven't seen a Sayers novel on their racks in ages. (I had to replace one of my worn copies a while back, and it was tough.) One can order them via Abebooks and other such sites, but you can't really ask students to order books from an online source with no guarantees that the book will arrive on time (or at all).

Our local UBS has quite a few Sayers novels right now (including 2 or 3 copies of Gaudy Night). But I will admit, a few years ago when I was trying to replace some of mine, it was like trying to find hen's teeth.

> 7

Of course! When you don't want/need something, it's all over the place. But the minute you are actually looking for it, it disappears.

>8 lilithcat:
Exactly, especially books and shoes. :)

what about on line copies? doesnt Amazon offer them?