Mom always told me it was impolite to make fun of the way people look, but this image of President Donald Trump’s brain trust elicited a gasp. It’s scary enough imagining the financial fate of Ten Pound Island Book Co. in my trembling hands. How would it fare under the guidance of  these geniuses? ??? […] More >>

7/1/91 – Harold Katz’s operation is in a ratty duplex at the end of a street in a not-very-residential neighborhood in South Bronx. Junk heaped up out front and 3rd world types milling about. HUNDREDS of cartons of books. The two I opened were lousy but I propose to get Tony Tufts as a partner […] More >>

I was cataloging the journal of a man who went on a China trading voyage in 1838, when I came across a sentence that made my blood run cold. He was a young fellah, 27 years of age, and he only stayed in China for a year. He  made a bundle over there, and came […] More >>

Not to get too far ahead of myself here, but Jim Dourgarian wrote a mostly favorable account of his experience at the San Francisco book fair, leading off with the comment, “This was my first book fair in a decade, mainly because modern lit hasn’t been selling well.  During that time I forgot how physically […] More >>