The book depository

Some months ago there was a glowing two page spread in the TLS about a new translation of a book called 'Nils Holgersson's wonderful journey through Sweden' from the Norvik Press, which I assumed to be some Scandanavian, if not Swedish outfit. The book itself started life as a childrens' book but ended up as something more, not least because of its length of around 700 paperback pages. But I thought it might be interesting so got onto Amazon.

Where one finds that there are lots of books of roughly this name, many of them in foreign languages and most of them appearing to be heavily cut and heavily illustrated versions for children, one of which I bought and very nice it was too. But the Norvik Press one was missing, which was unusual for a book reviewed in the TLS. So off to the publisher where I find that the book in question comes in 2 volumes, for which the ISBNs are given. Ask Amazon about that to find that it knows about volume 2, but that it has attached the ISBN for volume 1 to the wrong book by the right person. First time that I have caught Amazon out in such a way.

But all is not lost. The Norvik Press site mentions an outfit called 'The Book Depository' (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/) of which I had not previously heard. Ask them about it all, to find that they know about both volumes, with the first volume being unavailable (this being some weeks ago). Perhaps the puff in the TLS had exhausted stocks of the first printing. However, they allow pre-ordering so I ordered them both up, and along they came, volume 2 first and volume 1, a week or so later. Nicely produced books and the first volume is going well, much better than the childrens' version. (I notice along the way that the Norvik Press is actually a department of University College London and not Scandinavian at all).

I then start to wonder whether the Book Depository would be a more ethical place to buy my books from than the tax avoiding Amazon. Good start in that their web site talks of doing stuff for those with Down's Syndrome, so at the very least they have heard of community affairs. But who are they? Are they just some subsidiary of some other gang, some other gang which is avasive as Amazon? Off to Companies House, flash the Book Depository company number helpfully included on the bottom of their home page to find that Companies House people do indeed know all about the Book Depository people and offer all kinds of documents at a flat rate of £1 a pop.

In this case, most of the documents are about the comings and goings of directors, and from the list of documents alone I am none the wiser about who owns this company and what their tax morals might be, although I have learned that their business is the 'retail sale of newspapers and stationery in specialised stores'. But this lack of wisdom is not the fault of the Companies House web site which looks to be well organised, even if some of their trade descriptions are a bit wide of the mark.

Watch this space.