Rare Book Sites, Blogs And Bloggers

This posting is dedicated to those on the Net and in the blogosphere who make the effort to write and publish work on books in general and rare books in particular. And to a few sites that provide solid information.

I know that there are others out there who are doing the good work and fighting the good fight – I just haven’t had an opportunity yet to find and read their postings. When I do, I will definitely take notice and spread the word.

The rare book world needs all the friends it can get so consider this a tip o’ the hat and thank you to friends I may never meet in person but am getting to know through their words.

Filip :: Books Passionate About Books And Book Collecting is doing good stuff. His Introduction To Book Collecting and Books And The Internet pieces are top-notch. But if for no other reason, his citation of Nicholas Basbane’s A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomaniacs, and the Eternal Passion for Books, and Basbane’s Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives on Book-Hunting in the 21st Century gets my vote. These are terrific volumes. Grab, devour and digest them. I would add to his list John Baxter’s A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict (2003), his memoir of book obsession. I met John not too long ago. Great guy. Wonderful book.

Not quite a blog, Esther Lombardi has a nice page on her Top 6 Book Collecting Guides
that also links to a few related articles, though how Collecting Plastic Jewelry made it on that list is a mystery to me.

To her list I would add some of our favorite oldies but goodies on book collecting and the trade:

BERNARD, Philippa Antiquarian Books. A Companion for Booksellers, Librarians
With Leo Bernard and and Collectors (1994).
Angus O’Neill

FABES, Gilbert H. The Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1929 (1929).

FRANKLIN, Colin. Book Collecting As One of the Fine Arts and Other Essays. (1996)

LOW, David. With All Faults (1973)

NEWTON, A. Edward. This Book Collecting Game (1928).
The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections. (1918)

(Newton was one of the most respected collectors of the first half of the 20th century)

RANDALL, David A. Dukedom Large Enough. Reminiscences of a Rare Book Dealer 1929-1956. (1969)

(Randall has a great line that I paraphrase here: “There is no more ridiculous reason for not buying a rare book than the feeble excuse that you cannot afford it.” This hit home as I can recall times past when I had to weigh the decision to buy a coveted book against paying the rent. I confess that the book often won and my landlord had to wait).

ROSENBACH, A.S.W. Early American Children’s Books (1933).
Introduction to Melville’s Moby-Dick (1924).
A Book Hunter’s Holiday (1936)
Books and Bidders: Adventures of a Bibliophile (1927)

SIMS, George. The Rare Books Game (1985).

SNELLING, O.F. Rare Books and Rarer People (1982).

WOLF, Edwin and Rosenbach. A Biography (1960).
John F. Fleming

(Rosenbach was the greatest rare book dealer/salesman of the first half of the 20th century, and a highly respected scholar. Both Rosenbach and David Randall have fascinating book stories and valuable bibliographic info. The Rosenbach biography and Randall’s autobiography are absolute musts).

Mike B has put together a very useful list of FAQs and answers on book collecting. Check it out.

Trussel.com has a nice list of resources for the book collector.

Our friends at Fine Books and Collectables magazine have an informative ongoing blog on their website. I enjoy the print version of the mag and if you’re interested you can subscribe.

Lee Stoltzfus writes a 2-3 times a week rare books blog that always has an interesting article or tidbit. On August 1, 2007, he linked to an article about bookstores in Rome that transported me back to a city I dearly love, if for no other reason than – if you live in L.A. - you have to feel affection for a place where, if all else fails, you can park perpendicular to the curb to fit into a tight space, or just drive up onto the sidewalk and park there, que sera, sera.

Our colleague Michael Lieberman of Wessel & Lieberman writes a blog called Book Patrol: A Haven for Book Culture He recently posted a piece called The Book Mules of Venezuela that – perhaps because I’ve read too much about the Drug War – I presumed was about evil book fiends stuffing contraband books into their nether regions for smuggling into the United States. I was relieved to learn that the piece was about, rather, non-human mules being used to transport books to remote areas of that nation so that locals could have access to them. Four-legged bookmobiles, they are.

Bookninja; Nicola Griffith’s Book Square ; Patricia Storms’s Booklust ; Bookride ; Lynn Deweese-Parkinson’s Bibliophile Bookpen ; Philobiblios ; and Book Nerd of Brooklyn’s The Written Nerd are all worth your attention.

I’m sure I’ve left out others but only because I’m unaware of them. So, if you’re writing about books in general and rare books in particular, please drop me a note with a link – I’ve love to read what you have to say.