of bookmongers and fishmongers...

My father is a primary care physician in midcoast Maine; a fair number of his patients are lobsterman and, as a result, he would come home now and then with a trunk full of lobsters. It was always great fun when this would happen...we would have a big feast and pick the rest for salad, bisque and the like.

I went to review some books at a client's home yesterday. I spent about an hour and a half reviewing the volumes and culling those that I wanted from the rest and chatting with the owner. Just as I was preparing to leave he told me that, as a thank you for coming to review the books, he had brought home 3 lobsters for me. Thus I came home with a couple of dozen very nice books *and* lobster. I clearly need to find more lobsterman with interesting collections of books *g*.

Longpen, long debate...

So Margaret Atwood gets tired of trapsing around the planet doing book promotions and, more importantly, signings and commissions the creation of "longpen." The idea is that an author can sit in the comfort of thier house, in a bathrobe with a serious bout of bed head, and sign books in, say, Kenya...or Newark. It is bad enough that the "author signed" market is so rife with fraud/forgery...must we now also be able to discern "hand signed by author" and "longpen signed by author". Once the computer has "recorded" the authors "signature", why can't the author just go take a nice tub...while the pen signs a few thousand books.

This is one of the many reasons why I do not encourage the handful of modern lit collectors I work with to pay much attention to signatures. There are always exceptions, but unless you can pursue the exceptional (and well documented) signatures/inscriptions, the cost/benefit weighs poorly. The fact is, a good autopen (used by presidents/CEOs and who knows how many authors) can take a signature example and perfectly reproduce it...I have heard that, like the gem industry, the best now include small, subtle differences, so if you hold two next to eachother, they appear to be from the same hand, but not mirrors of eachother.

Personally, I love it when an author inscribes a book to me...preferably when they actually know me and incorperate something of "our" relationship in the inscription. This is also the only type of inscription that really pleases me in a book. There was a time that if book was signed, you at least knew the author had held it in his/her hands...no longer. Does it matter. How knows...but it just makes me feel icky.

The Fine Books 50...on shelves now...

Fine Books is at it again. They have produced another dense and rich issue, certain to aid you in loosing several hours of your valuable time. I have grown very attached to this magazine and suggest that it is, by far, the best book/trade journal on the market and arguably the best that has seen print. Great article and great images...just a real treat every other month. The lead story this month is a countdown of the top 50 books, maps, and autographs sold at auction in 2005. While I made some good buys this year at auction, sadly none made the list...I'll try harder this year. They have put the list (with sublinks) online here and an abstract of the article can be found here. It's a great read...have fun [toward full disclosure, we advertise in FB, so by all means read N. Basbane's monthly article closely and see if you can spot our ad].