<<< Continued from previous page

Though history hasn't yet repeated itself, there's no shortage of authors who are cashing in on the "coming" depression - how you can survive it, how you can profit from it, and so on. I've been watching Amazon sales rankings for now highly revered forecaster Harry S. Dent's The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History, and it's been well under 100 for weeks. Find a used copy for a buck on your next outing, and you could probably cash $15 in, oh, 15 minutes. Bread-and-butter bookselling.

If you type the words "great depression" in the title box on an Amazon search page, dozens of pages of titles come up, most of them recently published - and absolutely not a single one of them selling for pennies, not even the stinkers. Many are in the $10 to $20 range, in fact, with impressive sales rankings.

And there's no shortage either of books about the actual Great Depression, some of them now selling at impressive prices. Much was written and continues to be written about this era, some if it collectible and becoming more collectible as our recession deepens. It simply fascinates. It's difficult for me to imagine a time when readers won't devour stories of survival.

So - it's not too late to get on board and make a few bucks on this niche yourself, but, as always at BookThink, the point I'm making is broader and deeper: If you don't know history, it can't hurt to start learning it - and, meanwhile, keep your trigger finger on the pulse of current events, watching for historical match-ups, and you too could survive this period of economic uncertainty and come out of it a better bookseller.

An aside: If you haven't seen the YouTube series of Great Depression Cooking with Clara, get started here ...

... and prepare to be delighted and perhaps ... enlightened!