Books meeting and parties in Portland...

The last two evening have been great fun to be bookishly inclined in Portland, ME. On Tuesday, Longfellow Books (Portland's gem of an indy book store) sponsored a reading by Kevin Shay of his first novel, The End as I Know It: A Novel of Millennial Anxiety. The reading was also sponsored by Portland's own Library Thing. Best yet, following the reading, all were welcomed to Library Thing's offices for wine and munchies (including a really wonderful crab dip). The highpoint of the evening for me was, while chatting with Tim Spalding (LTs founder), hearing him state, "While I am not a book collector..." This from A) the founder of a site dedicated to cataloging private collections of books; b) a UofMich. graduate student in classics (Greek and Latin) whose several barrister cases are filled with volumes that make the eyes of the vast majority of avid readers glaze over and/or whimper and; C) who has stacks of books *in his kitchen*. I completely understand what he *meant* by the statement...but it is far too much fun to take it completely out of context .

As if that were not enough fun for one week, tonight was the monthly meeting of the Baxter Society, Maine's premier (and only) bibliophilic society. The speak was Dan Posnansky, a noted Sherlock Holmes collector and founder of the Friends of Irene Adler (the first of the BSIish groups that admitted women). His presentation was wonderful. He brought some items of exceptional rarity... In addition to bringing the near legendary copy of Sign of the Four inscribed by Doyle to Eugene Field with a brilliant quatrain damning the pirate publisher to hang on his main-yard, he also brought the only known inscribed copy of the first Holmes tale in print....oh, and several letters from FDR and Truman to BSI. Dan is also the husband of the noted bookdealer (and past president of the ABAA) Priscilla Juvelis.

It was just a great evening. While I have a great time being left alone to catalogue books, going out, now and again, is really quite nice .