I bought a very nice copy of a hard to find book, “Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union”, published in 1988. The author, Robert Robinson, a black machinist with Ford Motor Company (itself highly unusual), took the opportunity in 1930 to go the Soviet Union for a year as part of an exchange program. He didn’t get out, but he survived miraculously, for 44 years. He was 80 when this book was published. The book was signed and inscribed by Robinson.
I thought it would be a very interesting book to read, and that I would then list it for sale. Surely, like me, any number of people would want this copy.
I took it to the bookdealer’s desk. He looked at me, smiled, and said: “Good. I don’t sell many Soviet Union books these days. No one is interested.”
I am sure he knows better than I do.
