You can always count on a good Ephemera Society of America Dealer’s Showcase. Nice hotel, good eating nearby, affordable booth rents, captive audience.  Plus, they’ve been running the identical show so long it could almost run on autopilot. What’s not to like? Well, there’s always something. The Friday night preview for Ephemera Society members […] More >>

Lately I’ve been re-reading books I’d read in my youth, just to see how they hold up over time. Catch-22 was a total flop. The same joke over and over. The Great Gatsby seemed like a vast, sweeping drama when I first read it. The second time around it was a sad, skinny tale. On […] More >>

I always wondered why the late Peter Howard named his business “Serendipity.” He was an excellent bookman, in many ways a leader of his generation of bookpeople. I found him astute, focused, tireless, and deeply knowledgeable – about as far from Serendipitious as I could imagine. After a while I simply assumed he was talking […] More >>

Sure seems that way. Promoter Julie Roper and the ABAA Book Fair Committee, along with our NoCal colleagues, knocked it out of the park at this past weekend’s San Francisco International Antiquarian Book Fair… making for the second smashingly successful book fair in as many weeks. The gate of over 5000 attendees broke all records […] More >>

Because this year’s ABAA show had moved up from its traditional Super Bowl weekend slot, the splendid Pasadena Convention Center was unavailable for the “Shadow” show that usually precedes it. (Something called Groom Expo West was taking place there instead.) If there was to be a Shadow show at all, a new venue needed to […] More >>