More than 40 years attending book fairs, reviewing them, badmouthing them, supporting them, and I never had an experience even close to what I experienced at Rare Books San Francisco on Saturday afternoon, February 4, 2023. But first, a little context. The event was held in a historic bank building – someone told me it […] More >>

So, somebody in our august trade org. was watching a 2016 rerun of Antiques Road Show and saw there the mug of a convicted felon who’d formerly been a bookseller/appraiser before he was kicked out of said august trade org. and just about everything else (as he should have been) except, apparently, our collective memories […] More >>

  Worked all last week cataloging, arranging, and spiffing up presentation of the 70 or so items I’m sending out west for Rare Books San Francisco  Feb 3-5 and the California International Antiquarian Book Fair in Pasadena, Feb. 10-12. That’s right. Five boxes. Total. There’s always more to do, but I figured I’d earned a […] More >>

I hope you won’t take this as unseemly complaining, but any time I sell more at a provincial book show than I spend, I know I’m in trouble. This year, at “Papermania Plus – 2023” I sold about $4370 and bought $750 worth of goods. A bad day for me. Here’s how it happened. Several […] More >>

Mike is back working in the stacks, freeing me up to get another list of rares out. Unfortunately, he’ll be headed back to Ireland in a month or so, and I’ll be back in the dungeon of cheap books. A couple of years ago I thought Dave would bail me out. He was a smart […] More >>