Over on the left, you can see that Ana has chosen February's book, Dave Eggers's What Is the What. I haven't picked up my copy yet and may run out to Barnes & Noble or Borders to see if I can find it. In searching for places to buy it online, it looks as though prices and shipping vary:
- $15.60 from Amazon and Borders Online - usually ships within 3 to 6 weeks [Note: Borders uses Amazon for their online sales and distribution.]
- $16.76 or $15.08 for members from Books-A-Million - usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks
- $18.20 or $16.38 for members from Barnes & Noble - usually ships within 24 hours
- $18.50 to $32.25 (as of writing this post) from Half.com - shipping times vary
- $18.77 to $50.00 (as of writing this post) from AbeBooks - shipping times vary
- $26.00 from McSweeney's - processing before shipping is usually 1 day
- $26.00 from Powell's - processing before shipping is 1 to 3 days
What Is the What is also available from other places since the above is just a sampling. The variation in price obviously relates to seller discount. I suspect the longer shipping times might relate to McSweeney's relationship with the recently beleaguered Publishers Group West:
For McSweeney's, the timing of AMS's filing could not have been worse: A large portion of the revenues from the publisher's new Dave Eggers novel, What Is the What -- a percentage of which were to be donated to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation to aid the Sudanese in America and the Sudan -- is now tied up in the bankruptcy. "We shipped 60,000 copies during that period and the proceeds are not here yet," said Horowitz.
Although I haven't paid much attention to the AMS bankruptcy story—in my book days, publishers and booksellers went in and out of business all the time—this development is a real shame. If you don't mind paying full price, buying it directly from McSweeney's would be the most philanthropic thing to do.
In any case, if you plan on getting this book for next month's discussion, you might want to start looking now. February is a short month.
