notes from buyers...

Ok, I admit it. I love getting notes from people (mostly emails, but a couple of letters) telling me how much they love the book, how it solved a research issue they were working on, just saying thank you for packing their new treasure in the rather overdone way that we do. These notes are one of the things I look forward to the most...making my day every time.

that need to possess...

Carl Sandburg, renowned Lincoln collector and Pulitzer Prize winner (for his biography of Lincoln), recalls a tale that so aptly describes the near-pathological nature of some aspects of collecting:

"...[Oliver] Barrett saw a manuscript in the handwriting of Robert Burns--the verses of "Auld Lang Syne"--he said 'I want this "Auld Lang Syne,"' [Charles] Gunther replied, 'I know how you feel. I went over to England and I got it and I had to pay a lot of money.'
Barrett: 'I want it now. You know how it feels to have it, and I don't know how it feels.'
Gunther: 'I will sell you this "Auld Lang Syne" and you write out the receipt and put in the receipt that any time I want it, I can buy it back at the same price.'
Barrett took it home. A week later Gunther was on the phone and saying: 'Bring back the "Auld Lang Syne." You know, I haven't been able to sleep. I hear the waves of Lake Michigan pounding at night and I think about it. I walk down Michigan Avenue thinking about it, and now it is gone and I am not going to last many years. Let me have it back.'

Basbanes was right...a gentle madness, indeed.

Bouillabaisse for Bibliophiles...

I have a rapidly growing obsession with books on books/collecting/lore. I suffer these wee binges periodically. My most embarrassing was "discovering" Clive Cussler's Dirk Pit books several years ago...which resulted in my reading every one of them in sequence...very funny, great airplane books...but...er...perhaps too much in sequence.

My best binge, from a literature standpoint, was the year my grandfather passed away. When I entered college, he gave me a set of the Great Books of the Western World (along with a nice set of Brittanica). I used them a great deal during school (the 2 volume Syntopicon effectively cross-references "concepts" with the writings of some of the best writings put to paper by dead, white, western Europeans). The year he passed away, I decided that actually reading the entire set would be a fitting tribute. While I still believe two volumes of Thomas Aquinas is probably a bit more (approx. 1.5 volumes) than anyone actually needs, it was a wonderful exercise and one I would recommend to anyone.

Anyway, my current binge is the class of books on the nature of collecting and the history of given books, etc. There are just wonderful stories out there, the title is one rather well known volume, but there is so many more: The Amenities of Book Collecting, The Book Hunter, Books and Bidders, Unpublishable Memoirs and, more recently, books like Gentle Madness, A Splendor of Letters, Used and Rare, etc., etc., etc. Snippets will be forthcoming...

hmmmmm....

Pamela Anderson working in a bookstore in the new comedy, "Stacked." I am not certain if I am amused, bemused, saddened, horrified or titilated (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Given the success of Numbers, one wonders if a crime drama ala Dunning's Cliff Janeway books could make a go of it (it would have to be more interesting than not one, but two "blind cop" shows).

Books that have crossed by bow recently...

Just a quick list of books that I have touched in the last few days that I think are wonderful (it's been a good week):

1: Elephant House: or The Home of Edward Gorey - Images from the house taken shortly after he passed away...everything just as he left it...an unusual glimpse into a life...

2: Alone Together (David Graham) - Exhibition catalog of images taken from a home off the coast of Maine where a couple lived, alone, for 40 years...reading to eachother. He was, prior to his self-exile, an engineer at Lockheed. Not unlike the above, the images were taken after both were dead...capturing in images the world the couple shared, utter simplicity and dozens of books. The essay introduction sums up their lives wonderfully: "Fourty years of solitude. Fourty years of winter storms and late springs and hungry mosquitoes. Fourty years of canned sardines. Fourty years of reading to eachother."

3: Songbook (Nick Hornby) - Just a great collection of essays on music and culture by the author of High Fidelity (made into one of my more favorite films). The first edition came with a very cool 11 track cd with a remarkable collection of music.

4: The Berlin Years (Marcel Dzama) - This is a plate collection and scrapbook of arguably the most interesting illustrator alive at the moment and the best thing Canada has produced since Second City. Breathtaking strangeness.

5: The Irresistible Stories of Anatole France: "Booklovers' Edition" (Anatole France) - A 10 volume set of his fiction. OK, I admit it, I have a weak spot for France. The collection is great reading from the man who gave us such quotations as, "I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom;" "If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing;" "Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me;" and, my personal favorite, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

That was fun. I may have to do this again sometime soon. Truly, one of the greatest aspects of dealing in books is the day to day discovery of new and wonderful books that make your life slightly more interesting.

Howl at the court...

Having been fretting about the courts for a bit, I was pleased to run across a story which may bring a bit of hope to those similarly fretting...On March 25, 1957, US Customes agents seized a number of Allen Ginsberg's, Howl, claiming it was "obscene." He and his attorneys were somewhat concerned when they learned that the judge hearing the case was a sunday school teacher who, a short time before his hearing, had sentenced several shoplifters to sit through a screening of "The Ten Commandments." Ignoring the "cruel and unusual" implications of forcing someone to watch Charlton Heston, this bode poorly for a poem with some rather graphic references. Much to everyone's surprise and supporter's pleasure, the court came down solidly on the side of Ginsberg, Howl and the 1st Amendment.

For better or worse, federal judgeships are for life. More often than not, this results in a broader, deeper and more "holistic" view of the law...at least this is what I keep telling myself, over and over and over and over (ok, I admit, I have still not recovered from Pres. Bush the Elder declaring C. Thomas, "the most qualified person" in the country to take the seat of Justice Marshall (personally, I think it was Lawrence Tribe...but then I also think every other sitting justice on the Federal bench should have resigned the next day).

On why you build a private collection:

"A personal library is the most substantial thing many of us ever create." - Wayne Somers

Simple, eloquent and very true.

Posts on the nature and implications of the current online environment...

I have a kernel of an idea that I will be exploring here over, most likely, several posts. The issue is the nature and implications of the online aggregators for bookselling. As a starting point, I will make the following observation: The problem with the likes of ABE is that all "dealers" are, to all extent and purposes, "equal." That is to say, they have built a "mall" where the weekend flea market seller, the consignment dealer, the Dollar Store, Saks Fifth Avenue and Fendi are all treated the same...and, to the customer, are indistinguishable from each-other.

The book market used to have/has a number of viable and equally important business models. The lines separating the various approaches has become increasingly murky. High end dealers who used to lot out dreck are now listing much of of it (often ignoring the margins), used dealers who would direct particularly good items to a boutique dealer now believe (oft times, correctly) that they can sell the volume just as well themselves and at a greater return. The net of this is that far too many are engaged in a race to mediocrity...

So fair warning...there will be a series of posts on topics thus related.

Suffering from plauge...

Really, I think I might have plague (he says, with a smile). Fluids and cataloging will be the course of the day. Which brings me to the minor mystery I am trying to track down today. Not many know that Noah Webster, in addition to a fondness of words, was a lay epidemiologist. I am currently trying to track down one of his lesser known works, "A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases..." It was published in this country in 1799 but I am actually looking for the much less common London edition. He had all but given up on the US publisher and had sent the manuscript over to London to be printed. Shortly before it was published in the UK, the US printer finally printed it...this, however, annoyed the London publisher a great deal as they were under the impression that it was an unpublished volume and, in the end, never paid Webster for the book.

It is amazing, in our age of instant communication, how much could happen in the couple of months it could take to get trans-Atlantic communications (there and back again) and what the meant for how one conducted one's business. I think I will go check reference volumes at the Bodleian...because I can. Actually, for anyone who does not know it, there is an amazing collection of illuminated manuscripts, from the collections of the various Oxford Colleges available (N.B. most images are *large* and high quaility...a high speed connection is recommended).

At least a post a day...

(to keep the doctor away). I am going to attempt to post at least once or twice a day for the next few weeks just to see if something interesting can evolve by waxing esoteric on books, collecting, dealing and various other sundry issues. Thanks to those of you who have already discovered this and sent messages of support (though, admittedly, I am somewhat baffled as to how you found it and...er...why).

As the wry and wonderful O. Wilde is quoted as saying, "Anyone can make history. Only a great man can write it." (N.B. I am not writing history here ). Then again when asked, as he passed through customs, "Do you have anything to declare?" he responded, "Nothing but my own genius." I am always tempted to answer with that line when passing through customs...but my dislike of cavity searches has, thus far, kept me from it (though I really would like to have seen the agent's reaction to OW).

Growing a collection...

I have just begun building a complete, fine collection of the Scribner's Illustrated Classics series. They are wonderfully illustrated (Wyeth, Parrish, Pyle, etc) juvenile fiction and lovely to look at. Interestingly, there appears to be no "official" bibliography of this series...surprising given the overall popularity of the volumes (originally published in the 1910s and 20s, they remain in print today). In all, there are somewhere around 20 volumes (I'll update this when I come to a firm sense of all that exist).

Too many people end up overwhelmed by the scope of what they want to collect (e.g. "westerns" or "southern fiction"). I think it is so much better to drill down on that which really engages you. Build a small collection of near pristine Scribner's Classics...then add everything illustrated by NC Wyeth (also a smallish, though in some cases, pricey collection). When you get the Wyeth where you what it, you broaden to Pyle and so on. What you end up with is a vibrant, organic collection that is bound together in interesting ways.

I've seen similar growth in many private collections and they are so much more engaging than a very broad, but thin, library.

Whale in a Pail...

One of the most wonderful copies of Moby Dick is the edition illustrated by Rockwell Kent. There was a wonderful limited edition of this edition, housed in a lovely aluminum slipcase...thus, "Whale in a Pail." One of the better concept pieces...