reading
Sometimes I feel the need for something less filling, so I'll pick up pop fiction to satisfy that craving. This morning, I found a copy of John Dunning's latest book, The Sign of the Book, on our coffee table (lots of books in this house) and I haven't been able to put it down. It may not be literature, but it is highly entertaining and educational.
Cliff Janeway, an antiquarian bookseller, is a former cop who occasionally takes on investigative work which, wouldn't you know it, always manages to involve books. The plotlines are okay, but it is Dunning's insights to book publishing and collecting which are most interesting. The first two books in the series, Booked to Die and Bookman's Wake, are loaded with proper book handling and scouting tips.
Twelve years ago, my friends F&A subleted an apartment in NYCity that was filled with books. I wish I knew then what I know now about book collecting because I'm certain there were some gems in that collection. All of them were hardcovers from the sixties and seventies with pristine book jackets. The landlord's parents collected the books, so I'm sure she didn't know what was in there.
We have several autographed books (Ann Rice, Sting, Augusten Burroughs, Bill Clinton), but our prized possession is an autographed first edition of David Sedaris' Barrel Fever in which he inscribed in childlike handwriting "i still care." It may not be worth a lot, but we treasure it since it was his first book before he became more famous.
Books make good gifts, but autographed first editions make great gifts. John and Helen Dunning maintain a website in which they sell "a great variety of books, many cheap and recently out-of-print, some still in print, some scarce and long out-of-print, a few somewhat pricey, but most, they hope, having the main characteristics they looked for in the store: is it interesting, is it useful, is it in very good or better condition?"
That's a picture of John, not Helen.
Cliff Janeway, an antiquarian bookseller, is a former cop who occasionally takes on investigative work which, wouldn't you know it, always manages to involve books. The plotlines are okay, but it is Dunning's insights to book publishing and collecting which are most interesting. The first two books in the series, Booked to Die and Bookman's Wake, are loaded with proper book handling and scouting tips.
Twelve years ago, my friends F&A subleted an apartment in NYCity that was filled with books. I wish I knew then what I know now about book collecting because I'm certain there were some gems in that collection. All of them were hardcovers from the sixties and seventies with pristine book jackets. The landlord's parents collected the books, so I'm sure she didn't know what was in there.
We have several autographed books (Ann Rice, Sting, Augusten Burroughs, Bill Clinton), but our prized possession is an autographed first edition of David Sedaris' Barrel Fever in which he inscribed in childlike handwriting "i still care." It may not be worth a lot, but we treasure it since it was his first book before he became more famous.
Books make good gifts, but autographed first editions make great gifts. John and Helen Dunning maintain a website in which they sell "a great variety of books, many cheap and recently out-of-print, some still in print, some scarce and long out-of-print, a few somewhat pricey, but most, they hope, having the main characteristics they looked for in the store: is it interesting, is it useful, is it in very good or better condition?"
That's a picture of John, not Helen.
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