David Letterman may have been joking, but he wasn’t far off. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out, Raincoast Books made waves when it announced that its entire print run would be printed on 100% post-consumer, chlorine free recycled paper. And I don’t mind telling you that the copy that I bought looked just great. The move was estimated to have saved as much as 30,000 trees in the first print run alone.
So it came as a considerable surprise to me to learn that not all of Harry Potter was printed in this fashion. American publisher Scholastic is printing its copies of Harry Potter entirely on virgin paper. Bloomsbury, the British publisher, is at least committing to 30% recycled. And it looks like, for the highly anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Raincoast Books will again go the 100% recycled route.
Personally I think that Raincoast offers up a better version of Harry Potter by eschewing the inferior American edition cover designs and going with the British version. The copies simply look better. American readers have the ability to order direct from Raincoast through Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca, and I personally recommend you do this — or better yet, encourage your local bookstores to order direct from Raincoast, if possible.
Our condominium complex had its annual garage sale today. And, of course, the event was marked by clouds and the threat of rain. I swear, I think we should schedule these things to take place in the middle of a drought, if only to benefit the farmers.
I sold sixty dollars worth of stuff, but the real victory here is how much this cleared out our terminally cluttered basement. We can see the floor at last. And we now have about ten bags of garbage to go to the curb, along with loads upon loads of cardboard for recycling. Overall, quite a purge.