Gord Sellar wrote:
> This is all very odd. You can usually find a good number of the Brit
> paperbacks imported in most big bookstores here...
>
> But why is it (Banks) so hard to find in the US and yet not so hard in
> Canada . . . or, at least, in Montreal?
There are lots of Banks books in Edmonton, too. Brit authors aren't
plentiful, but you can usually find most of the big names.
An employee at Greenwoods (a nice little independent bookstore here) once
explained the situation to me when I tried to get hold of an early Stephen
Baxter novel. Apparently, the big book distributors made a deal many years
ago, where they split up the (western) world between them. The British
distributors got the rights to offer books in the UK, Australia, New
Zealand, and maybe Europe. The American distributors got the rights to
North and South America. But Canada, as a former British colony, somehow
got to straddle between the hemispheres. So Canadian bookstores have
access to both British and American books.
Or at least that's what he said.
Kevin Street
