a day spent gardening...

I spent the day at my parents home on the ocean in midcoast gardent. The sun was bright, there was a lovely sea breeze off the harbor. It was a perfect day.

I created two new beds…one “normal” and one that was mostly exposing granite ledge for what will be a new rock garden. The sod went to build up a hollow in a newly created “romantic spot” we built for my parents.

There is this lovely tree in the meadow next to the house and we were able to cut a path around the tree to the front, and create this wonderful spot…wild roses on both sides, spruce tree behind, dear slope of grass down to a gentle granite ledge that one can wade out on when the tide is in. We are putting a pair of Adirondack chairs before the tree…it will be a very cozy place to sit with a cool drink and hold hand *g*…My parents are celebrating their 40th anversary this week (but are overseas at the moment) and we have done all this as a surprise. It has been such fun.

To bring this all back to books…as all things should…I offer the following a engaging reads:

The 3000 Mile Garden: An Exchange of Letters on Gardening, Food and the Good Life (Leslie Land and Roger Phillips). Four years of letter exchanged by to passionate gardeners…one in rural Maine, the other in London. It is really quite fun and a fount of good advice and ideas.

Onward and Upward in the Garden (Katharine S. White). An editor of The New Yorker for 34 years (and began with them in year one), she was a gifted and prolific writer. Her husband, E.B. White states in the introduction, “She simply accepted the act of gardening as the natural thing to be occupied with in one’s spare time, no matter where one was or how deeply involved in other affairs.” It is a great read.

Thinking of E.B. White reminds me of one of my favorite quotations and I will sign off with it: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

How to make reading Ulysess slightly more surreal...

As I think I have mentioned before, I have a rather deep weakness for Joyce. It is all my grandfather's fault, I'll wax esoteric on his influences sometime soon, suffice it to say he read me long portions of it as a child and it has all been downhill from there. One of the by-products of his influence is that I have reread a number of times (trying to offset that whole, "most owned, least read" mythos *g*).

I have relatively recently finished rereading it yet again. This time was different and really engaging. I "read" the Octagon (FSG)/Rosenbach facsimile reproduction of the manuscript and first printings. Reading the text, in Joyce's hand, is hard to describe...and somewhat hard to do. He had an interesting style in that he wrote "on an angle," which it to say the length of the lines at the top of the page are wider than the lines a the bottom...creating, when needed, ample room for marginal notation and/or changes. His handwriting becomes rather easy after a bit...but reading pages and pages of script is trying.

The facsimile of the first printings is effectively a "re-creation, in reverse order, of the evolution of Ulysses." A photo-copy of the first printing of the 1922 Shakespeare & Co. edition has been marked to illustrate the difference between it, the serialized version (published in The Little Review) and the original manuscript. It is *really* interesting. Well, all right, really interesting to that rather small group of demented humans enthralled by such things.

This has me thinking, once again, at what a loss there is with most modern writing practices. With the almost ubiquitous use of word processors, the "process" of the creation of a great work is almost always lost. This is, I think, a great loss. It is not that the "final product" isn't the most important....but *how* the author got there can add a great deal of depth. The interesting thing is that the technology, frankly, exists...to log each change and document it well. In a minor bit of poking around on the subject, however, I have not found a single writer or agent who is logging manuscript iterations.

Maybe it doesn't matter at all. I think it probably does...not I am not certain *how*. I suggest you can not *hold* the manuscript in Joyce's hand and not *feel* the creation of the book. I also suggest you could hold an external hard drive containing every "manuscript" of every significant book of the last decade or two and feel nothing at all. Ed Tenner wrote a great book, Why Things Bite Back, Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences...I highly recommend it.

Book blogs...

I thought a quick list of some other good and/or interesting book blogs might be nice. Please feel free to add more under Comments.

Bookfinder's Blog (I am partial as they mentioned this blog a month ago or so)

Book Ninja (funny, sharp and not recently updated)

Cat's Cradle blog (no recent posts, but some nice content...perhaps they shall return)

Used Book blog (also not recently updated...a trend, perchance)

NEWLY ADDED:
Beggars of Azure (runs a brick and mortar shop, writes well, posts with some frequency *and* is a fan of A.E. Newton...and even asked to be included. What more could one ask for)

There are others...I will try to track some down...with luck, some that actually post with some degree of regularity.

A Manual for Mediaeval Librarians...

* Books by men and women must never be shelved side by side.
* Books about children, or written for them, must be accompanied on the shelves by books about adult authors.
* Books about youth must be returned by borrowers and back on their shelves by nightfall each day.
* Books by aged writers must be carefully supported.
* Books written for the poorly-sighted and elderly should be shelved near windows or candlestands, unless they be illuminated.
* Books on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum must be susted regularly, and may be loaned only to the illiterate.
* Books on diseases and infection must be kept in strict isolation from the main collection.
* Books on scientific, vulgar, and worldly subjects must come under persistent fumigation.
* Books about murder, thievery, and other evils of human behavior are best set near volumes on ecclesiastical and civil law, from which they might find benefit.
* Folios are best preserved if placed flat, that they may rest at ease; and at some distance from their smaller brethren, so that each may retain its dignity of size, neither aggrandized nor belittled.

(Courtesy of "Fra" William F.E. Morley, former Curator of Special Collections, Douglas Library, Queen's University at Kingston, as published in a limited edition by Wolfe Editions on behalf of the Baxter Soceity.)

Errata of the week...

Franz Kline it/was a major and signficant modern/abstract artist. While cataloging a lovely copy of Franz Kline: The Color Abstractions, I discovered the rather uncommon erratta sheet laid into it. 1 through 4 of the errors illuminated note the plates that were printed IN THE EXIBITION CATALOG upside down. This amuses me on too many levels.

Mildly annoying not to be poly-lingual...

I have a small cache of what I believe are early (late 17-early 1800s) Asian sketchbooks by the likes of Keisai Kuwagata and Seiho. They are beautiful and I can discern enough to know that I need to know more. I'm in the process of touching base with some experts in the area...but I'm sort of annoyed at how little if know of foreign languages. I have a smattering of very bad Russian and a solid foundation in Latin. I wonder if I can get my son to learn Chinese and/or Japanese...it would clearly serve him in years to come in addition to saving me from having to learn it myself. Ah to be seven.

An emerging dealer?!?!

I grew up being dragged from one antique store to another...I read a lot as I could not touch anything. Now there are Gameboys. My son accompanied me a month or so ago, to the NY ABAA event for the first time (this is he, standing before a nice display of juvenilia). He is seven and, if I do say so myself, wonderful. He loves books and has a small collection of miniature volumes (which he has listed for sale) and he was very impressed by how big the event in NY was and how many "wonderful books" there were.

When the novelty of the fair wore off, he adopted a wonderful strategy to ward off boredom...he sat about halfway down whatever aisle I was exploring and played Gameboy. When I would get up to him, he would look up, smile and say, "Hi dad, find any good books?" (much to the pleasure of those around us). When I got to the end of an aisle, but he'd get and start over at the next.

He attended the Portland fair with me a bit later and was a great help. We had a booth there, as supporting Maine's only event is important. He helped carry things in and fetched water and other useful duties. He proofread the slips for his miniatures the night before (catching the two or three errors I had deliberately left to be found). He was charming and funny pretty much all day. At the end of the day, he looked up at me and asked, "Am I a book dealer now?" I am extremely fond of my brilliant and witty spawn.

There's Sex in My Violence...Morford nails another one...

Admittedly, this is not directly book related, but it touches on issues of censorship, artistic freedom and the general public's rather bizarre willingness to tolerate wild amounts of violence while being "appalled" by people touching each other in overly friendly ways. The SF Gate just published There's Sex In My Violence! What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"? I am outraged!. Now I admit, I am really fond of Morford and find him to be one of the better voices of reason and rationality in the mire of vapid chatter out there.

His point is, I think, a valid one...and one that has play in the book world. There have been a number of "great books" (and some not so great) that were banned at least in part as being pornographic (Ulysses comes to mind) and yet I can not think of a single one that banned for wanton and excessive violence (ok, perhaps Justine...but I think it was the sex). Why is it that so many of us (and here I mean, Americans) seem to be so willing to bath in blood, in books, games and video…but then get suddenly apoplectic about gratuitous sex (or not so gratuitous). There is something deeply sad (and arguably depraved) about a society that revels so in blood and is so shocked by other acts of the flesh. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

book lore contribution #473

The last book Alice Neel illustrated was the Limited Edition Club's, Fall of the House of Usher by Poe printed by the Anthoensen Press. It is a wonderful, folio sized edition illustrated with Neel's dark and striking plates (and includes her "skull" self portrait). She was dying as she did the work of this book and the press knew it. It was to be a limited edition of 600 volumes and, as Neel's health deteriorated, Anthoensen sent a sheath of blank leaves to Neels home. She signed 400 of them before she died and these leaves later had the colophon page printed upon them, above her signature. It is stories like this that make me love books and bookmen all the more. (N.B. I want a bit of credit for avoiding the easy, "Quoth the illustrator, Nevermore." Oh, well, perhaps not avoided afterall...)

Do not read this if you have not yet finished HP 6

Well I finished it on Sunday evening and here is my two cents: I find AD’s repeated “I trust Snape completely” and Snape’s hand on the wand to be compelling…add to that Snap’s subsequent, “No Potter!” when HP tried to use the Cruciatus curse (that is, trying to prevent him from using an Unforgivable Curse (ok, yes, he was intending to aim it at Snape)).

JKR is inclined to give hints about major issues…AD telling DM that, “He cannot kill you if you are already dead…” The repeated, seemingly unfounded yet unshakable “I trust Snape completely,” combined with the overt, “you can hide in death” reference leaves me pretty certain book seven will open (or thereabouts) with HP and AD reunited (probably at 12 Grimwald Place).

I may be wrong…but I’ll be quite disappointed if that is the case. AD’s death was far “beneath” his stature if it was his True Death. Time will tell…how long are we going to have to wait, one wonders... *sigh*

Fine Books Magazine...

Fine Books Magazine is exceptional (and pretty much the only game in town if you are seeking a good journal on books and collecting)…but it really is exceptional. Nick Basbanes writes a great column every issue and the other editorial content is first rate as well. It is nice to see someone trying to put out a journal for the “community.” Keep your eye out in the next issue as we are almost certain to have a nice ad in that issue.

Which reminds me, the next issue (Sept/Oct) is going to focus on young collectors (both temporally and in the collecting arch). We also have, on good advice, that they will be announcing a nationwide collegiate collecting competition. I think this is a great idea and could be a great way to draw young people to the obsession.

beating the bushes for new collectors...

We, as dealers, owe it to ourselves and the entire collecting community to reach out and actively develop new collectors. It is not good enough to sit back on our laurels and wait for book buyers to come to us. Well, to be fair, this is fine if you run a high volume shop…but for those of us with more boutique practices, cultivating the next generation is critically important. More than half the collections I am currently building are for people who did not “collect” before we began working together. This is not only good for me and my business, but at least as importantly, it is good for the bookseller community (e.g. several of these “new collectors” have taken great pleasure in beginning to attend book fairs and/or are getting involved in local bibliophilic activities.

On that front, I also think we need to start pushing our local organizations (e.g. MABA, MARIAB, Baxter Society, etc.) to support such educational efforts. I know the ABAA is making some efforts on this front…I am inclined to think that their time might be best spent if they were supporting the regional organizations with ideas and content. There was a time when joining a state’s bookseller organization was primarily to get one’s name in the printed book that collector’s pick up at various sites…that is, it was largely a marketing matter. ABAA has succeeded in showing that it should also convey an ethical practices guarantee (this is likely to be the focus of a future post…the regionals need to really embrace this idea). I suggest that going forward, one of the defining foci of the regional organizations should be on the education and cultivation of new collectors. We need to show people that the greatest thing most of them will ever create is a private library. More to follow….

New Client...pleasure of billables

So I just landed a new client for a cataloging project. That they have a library of a few thousand volumes is great. That they have a cadre in that number that are quite special is great. That they want to consign some number to be sold is great as well. What I simply love, however, is their willingness…their expectation…to pay a billable rate for the cataloging/appraisal work. I know this should not please me as much as it does and I have certainly had a number of other projects that were billable and went very well. However, this is just something nice about a client who offers to pay for the time involved in coming to visit as scope the project as a whole. To be fair, he is a corp. atty and, thus, billable hours are like breathing. I like him anyway :-).