Mark Hodkinson ponders the nature of our personal book collections, why and how we gather books, what it says about us, and how we ever expect to find time to read them all.
" Books, glorious books — confessions of a bibliomaniac"
As a Radio 4 documentary about book collectors airs, the Times deputy literary editor, James Marriott, who lives in a room full of volumes, admits to his problem.
Sandra Hindman is owner and founder of "Les Enluminures" with galleries in Chicago, Paris and New York specialising in manuscripts and miniatures from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the gallery also handles rings and jewelry from the same periods.
In this podcast Sandra has invited collector Benjamin Zucker and looks at their roles and relationship as dealer and collector. While this podcast focusses on the current "Diamonds" exhibition, it also reveals the fascination to collect, the handling of manuscripts and the knowledge needed to deal in historical items.
The 43rd Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair will take place this weekend, one of the oldest and most respected antiquarian book shows in the country. But not the only bibliophile event in Boston!
Internet fraud is a serious concern for every bookseller these days.
As a result of a number of reported scams which affected ILAB booksellers worldwide, ILAB has put together some best practice guidelines from booksellers for booksellers.
In politically uncertain times, the British Antiquarian Booksellers Association has put together some very useful guidelines on the import & export of books.
The annual fall gathering for booklovers, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston’s beautiful Back Bay for its 43rd year, November 15-17, 2019.
A report by Dr. Barbara van Benthem about a highly interesting seminar, organised by the German umbrella organisation for the arts trade, IG Kunsthandel, which took place last week in Munich.
Retracing the history - not to mention the prehistory - of the Syndicat Français de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne (SLAM) is not an easy task. The witnesses of the early days disappeared and the documents are often missing. As the archives were not kept with care, for want of fixed addresses (acquired only this year, in the rue Gît-le-Coeur) the traces we have managed to discover arc often faint, sometimes contradictory, and always inconsistent. The Bouquinistc Français, official organ of the SLAM, not having appeared till seven years after the Syndicat was founded (1920!) we find ourselves in a shadowy period from 1914 to 1920, under the presidency of Edouard Rahir. From 1920 to our own times, the Bouquiniste Français, acquired by the SLAM in 1945, which became the Bulletin de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne in 1963, gives us a better insight into the problems, preoccupations and activities of the SLAM.
Another important stepping stone in our history occurred in 1997. The long saga of St. Paul's Bibliographies reached the end of one era and the beginning of another as Robert Cross decided to retire and sold me his company. I was especially interested in the rights to bibliographies that he had tied up via his contracts and his large stock of unsold inventory. We sold a large portion of the Publishing Pathways inventory to The British Library and gave them UK sales rights for these and future projects, and I had a series of special sales to convert inventory into cash. Robert agreed to continue on in the role of a consultant, helping us find new titles and keeping old author friends in our camp. We had a splendid event in honor of Robert at Stationers' Hall in London, where I felt a bit overwhelmed with the history of the grand building.
Kostas was the perfect host and showed me the city as it was my first trip to Athens. I was invited to his home for dinner that night which again proved a bit strange as he lives right next to the President of the Greek Republic and soldiers were everywhere as I attempted to get there for the dinner date. After a number of checks I was pointed to the correct building where I was warmly welcomed by Kostas and his sister. I was shown parts of his personal collection of rare books which were soul-stirring to an antiquarian bookseller. When it was time for dinner, Kostas pointed me to a chair and commanded that I sit there. Not aware of the social etiquette of the Greek dining experience, I sat as instructed and had a glass of wine as booksellers are known to do. Kostas, with that impish smile I have grown to enjoy so much, then quickly opened the curtains in front of me and there, under floodlights, was the Acropolis. I was stunned with the magnificent view.
The Italian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (ALAI) is pleased to announce that the second edition of the ALAI book fair, Libri Antichi e di Pregio a Milano, will take place from 7th to 9th March 2014, in Palazzo Mezzanotte, the historical seat of the Milan Stock Exchange.
We know several book collectors who collect books about the technologies and personalities associated with computers. Some of these collectors have been collecting such books for decades. A few of these book collections are fairly comprehensive, encompassing everything from foundational works like John Napier's Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) to the latest installment of Computers for Dummies. (Even with the advent of ebooks, the great majority of this literature continues to have a print equivalent. Why is that?) Other such collections, though, are more focused: they deal only with the invention and evolution of personal computers, for example, or with the invention and evolution of the Internet.
