Is there some liability issue with papercuts that they couldn't give them away?

I was horrified to read this. What a loss...

Oh, that's sad. I remember walking into Kamkin's six or seven years ago, picking up a Russian translation of Ada and being pleasantly surprised when the kindly old gentleman at the counter literally jumped up and sprinted over to stop me from making a terrible mistake; he preferred another translation.

That's a great story. So which was his preferred translation?

There are two Russian Adas that I know of, both awful; one by Oksana Kirichenko ("Ada, ili Erotiada"), one by Sergei Ilyin ("Ada, ili Radosti Strasti"). You can probably glean the whole picture from these two attempts to preserve a trace of the "ardor" pun at the expense of both meaning and taste. (I bought neither).

Thanks. Somehow I'm not surprised.