Publishing houses keep relearning this lesson, as editors overspend for the rights to books that match their own appetites, losing track of mainstream American tastes.

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The letter also mentions loaning the book out, which could mean he felt a need to keep his books clean for other readers (this is perhaps a more persuasive argument).

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That made it harder to find buyers for the super senior tranches and forced many banks to keep them on their own books instead.

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Hopewell has also gotten flak for breaking the cardinal rule of mega-projects: Keep the costs off your own books.

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With volunteers, the money will be enough to keep the library a collection of some 4, 500 hundred books crammed into a former garage open for two hours a day, three days a week.

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