A trip to Sydney is incomplete without an excursion to Bob Gould’s book store in King Street. In my first few trips I would spend many hours and hundreds of dollars discovering all sorts of hidden treasures in the economics section up on the mezzanine. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that he passed away over the weekend.
A FEW hours after Bob Gould’s death at age 74 yesterday, the doors to his Newtown bookstore were open to the public.
”That’s what Bob would have liked,” said his daughter, Natalie Gould. ”He loved books and this place has been his life. Keeping it open is the best thing.”
The secondhand bookseller and left-wing activist had been frail for some time, but still worked at the store a couple of hours most days. He was sorting through his own books at the store, when he fell and injured his head. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late.
He died doing what he enjoyed and did so very well – managing his book store – and, ironically given his politics, in what could described as a workplace accident.
(HT: Harry Clarke)
With respect to Bob Gould, have you ever been inside Gould’s Books? ‘Well-managed’ is not a term you could apply when it looked like one of my kids’ bedrooms.
Barkeep
23 May 11 at 8:29 am
ironically Gould’s is where I bought Rothbard’s For a new liberty and Garfield’s Barwick’s memoirs (A radical Tory).
jtfsoon
23 May 11 at 8:47 am
well, this I didn’t know
jtfsoon
23 May 11 at 8:50 am
Pretty soon there will be few Marxist-Leninists left who have direct experience of a world where they thought The Revolution was not only possible, but immanent, lest humanity collapse into barbarism! Well of course, the barbarism was Marxism-Leninism itself.
With Gould gone, we’re left with Rundle, Barlow, and the motley crew of state drip-fed fag-end of the luvvies, such as the LP nursing home.
It will be very interesting once that fag-end of the Marx Generation no longer has any clout in our public debates, coz no-one after the baby boomers is falling for it.
Peter Patton
23 May 11 at 8:56 am
Funny – I bought Poppers Open Society and a complete set of Great books of the western world (for only $350) from that shop.
RodClarke
23 May 11 at 9:47 am
It’s so large and with so many nooks and crannies, you feel that the book you’re looking for must be here, if only you had more time to search.
daddy dave
23 May 11 at 10:01 am
[...] Sinclair Davidson on Catallaxy [...]
Bob Gould, 1937-2011 « Ozleft
23 May 11 at 10:09 am
I don’t think I ever found anything in there to buy. Maybe back in the 1990s.
Peter Patton
23 May 11 at 10:49 am
That’s because he was selling books. And Marxism is here to stay for as long as there is capitalism, so suck it up, princess.
The SMH article gives an amusing insight into the philistinism of Australia not very long ago – police raids to confiscate pics of Michelangelo’s ‘David’!
THR
23 May 11 at 11:33 am
THR, I’m afraid that you’re about the end of the road of that particular cult, sunshine.
Peter Patton
23 May 11 at 11:50 am
Of course. The West is still reeling from the GFC, the Arab world has been in flames all year, liberalism has been in terminal decline since 9/11, and China has become a giant version of 19th century Manchester, but apparently capitalism is going swimmingly. My god you are stupid, Patsy.
THR
23 May 11 at 11:52 am
I never knew things were so hard for ‘capitalism’.
Sad to hear about Bob Gould. I haven’t visited the store but will do so whenever I happen to visit Sydney. A man that loved books can’t be all bad.
dover_beach
23 May 11 at 12:12 pm
You should read the capitalist press, db. Things like the Financial Review. My points are made there on a daily basis.
THR
23 May 11 at 12:22 pm
Indeed, things are tough for the Financial Review but I doubt they have anything to do with ‘capitalism’.
dover_beach
23 May 11 at 12:25 pm
The West is still reeling from the GFC.
WTF?
Oh, and pssstttt…you would do well to check out the link between the self-immolating Arab world and its lack of capitalism.
China has become a giant version of 19th century Manchester
We should all pray so. Manchester was humanity’s first industrial city; the site of humanity’s first railway station. Manchester’s looms and spinning jennies helped transform Australia from a godforsaken sandpit to the richest society on earth. If this is the path China is on, I, for one, shall raise my hand, “more please”.
Oh, and dude, you would do well to reflect that the Chinese are not just gagging to be exposed to the dunceries of Marx and Lenin! Been there, done that, you see. But there is some connection between Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jinato. And that is a passion for Adam Smith; not er, that Engels dude.
Er, not really relevant to what I said.
Peter Patton
23 May 11 at 1:52 pm
Reeling are we THR? REELING!
Peter Patton
23 May 11 at 1:53 pm
I presume there won’t be a religious send off.
JC
23 May 11 at 1:55 pm
RIP Bob – you big crazy old man with the big crazy old bookshop.
TimT
23 May 11 at 5:07 pm
Patsy, you’re too infantile to be worthy of a proper response. Capitalist economies are in the midst of a number of convulsions around the world, from sovereign debt crisis to recession, to unsustainable growth elsewhere. Whilst some people are happy to accept the liberal consensus that the GFC was caused by poor bankers being bullied into making loans, and that everybody (but bankers) needs a good dose of austerity, and I take it that you are one of them. Not everybody else is, however, and for that reason, Marxism retains enduring relevance for as long as capitalism survives. I dare say even the more fair-minded of Catallaxians would agree with that statement, even if they don’t much care for leftist thought themselves.
THR
23 May 11 at 8:59 pm
Here is a selection of Bob’s writing. He did not only sell books.
http://members.optushome.com.au/spainter/Bobgould.html
Warwick
23 May 11 at 10:20 pm