Helping Larry Smith, Bookseller

Larry Smith has sold SF and fantasy books at more conventions than some of us have had hot meals. At nearly every con I attend, Larry and his wife and bookselling partner Sally Kobee have the largest all-new book installation in the dealer's room, offering just about every single title released in the previous few months, including plenty of material from publishers not part of the Big Five. They're part of the infrastructure of our community. I once (only partly jokingly) defined traditional SF fandom as that set of people who (1) subscribe to Locus, (2) read somebody else's copy of Locus, or (3) will tell you at some length just how thoroughly they don't care about Locus. You could as easily define us as "that set of people who buy a new hardcover from Larry Smith at least once a year."

As widely reported, on 8 Sep 2015, Larry was driving his van full of books home from DragonCon, when he was involved in a freeway accident that rolled the van. His passenger was unscathed, but Larry is reportedly pretty banged up. He was released from the hospital yesterday but it'll be a while before he's completely healed, and meanwhile insurance is covering only part of what it will cost to replace the all-important van, to say nothing of the many damaged and destroyed books. There's a GoFundMe for Larry and Sally that aims to raise $10,000; it's about halfway there. We're going to donate to it and we hope some of you do too. Truly great booksellers are never in plentiful supply.