a book that would have been easy for us to compile

Back in the 1990s we got a lot of unsolicited submissions in the post from people, usually with a covering letter to the effect of "I've shown this to some of my friends and they think it's really good.".

The most frequently occurring category was poetry and, needless to say, our opinion was invariably different to the people's friends; it got to the point where we just didn't want to see any more.  But if you're curious about what a general publisher gets in the slush pile, this may be enlightening (not published or stocked by us!)