IOBA Standard Volume 8(4) - Printable Edition

Foreword

Shawn Purcell

Feedback is usually a good thing if it is fair. Most of us engage in and are shaped by feedback in ways we don’t even realize. Evolution itself is one giant feedback loop.

As booksellers, one important way to measure the viability of whatever business model we employ is profitability. Less immediately tangible are such factors as reputation. The more prestigious bookseller associations screen applicants in a preemptory bid for high quality based on a number of factors, and if you seriously misbehave after admission you can get booted out. Until recently, however, with the exception of insider oddities such as the infamous Drif’s U.K. bookstore guides, we have not been universally rated as such.

EBay is the mother of all online transaction feedback. Personally, as a frequent seller and very infrequent buyer, I don’t have too many issues with eBay’s feedback system. If my regular procedures and safeguards fail, my satisfaction guaranteed policy comes to the rescue. Admittedly, however, book and ephemera customers really are the cream of the crop, and I’m sure I wouldn’t fare so well selling fake vintage pottery, reconditioned electronics, a kidney, or whatever. I also admit that I am not up-to-date on every nuance of the feedback debate. I don’t cruise the boards sopping up hate-mail from eBay conspiracy theorists or ABE-bashers who don’t realize that they were simply the first wave in the inevitable tsunami of overnight Gold Rush widget-sellers that has driven prices and professionalism into the ground to a far greater extent than greedy or inept search service managers could ever pull off on their own.

Currently all of the 3 As (AbeBooks, Alibris, and Amazon) utilize rating systems. In two of the three systems, booksellers (whose stock is their lifeblood) can’t rate the buyers in return, as they can on eBay, so there are no checks and balances; and casual shoppers don’t even know what the ratings are based on. Most professional booksellers understand the importance of reliability, but we have also been rubbed raw by a series of untraditional setbacks, of which this is just the latest.

So how do these three bookseller rating systems work? With Alibris, the star line provides an explanation, but it is not at all apparent that this is clickable. I had to be told about it by Alibris support. Their bookseller rating is based on fulfillment, which means the percentage of orders filled, versus canceled or refunded, within the last 31 to 210 days. Seller Rating is the default search. Sellers with a five star rating show up first, from lowest price to highest, and that is then repeated through the lower successively buried star ranks of reliability. For those who only have four stars (85-94.99% fulfillment) for reasons they deem unfair, this rather typical Alibris Big Brotherism must be a real sore point. And you can get kicked off altogether for consistently falling below 85%, though they will try to work with you first to avoid this. Alibris has made a decent attempt to eject and ban the worst mega-listers—an example AbeBooks should follow—but this rating system is unfair to booksellers for reasons we shall see, and it lets bad buyers off the hook altogether.

Peering into the intergalactic horn of plenty that is Amazon, one is immediately inundated by home page images of such items as the Omega Seamaster watch worn in the latest James Bond movie (“grappling hook and detonator not included”), gourmet decorative sugar, and dreadful bestsellers at cutthroat prices. Surprisingly, though, their five star/percentage rating system is pretty good. You can read the positive comments about service and the negative comments about poor description, high shipping, and yes, even lousy fulfillment. They also allow Seller Response. I didn’t feel like navigating around for half an hour to see what it takes for sellers to get kicked off Amazon, but it’s clear that buyers will understand what the system is based on simply by looking at the individual comments, just like they do on eBay. Last time I checked, both of these companies were doing fairly well.

Now we come to AbeBooks and their new five star rating system (five seems to be the industry standard). It works pretty much the same way as Alibris. Misleading to the public, and potentially unfair to the bookseller. At first glance, this appears to be a comprehensive rating based on many factors. At least with AbeBooks you can click on the somewhat more obvious Bookseller Rating link next to the star line to learn that it’s solely based on fulfillment, but how many customers will figure that out or bother to click if they do? Some years ago when AbeBooks first began to remove titles from their database as soon as they were ordered, for the avowed purpose of reducing customer disappointment over low fulfillment, I considered this blatant interference. I’ve changed my thinking in the meantime. AbeBooks indisputably removes my listings faster than I would, and they have made it easy to reinstate them if the transaction does not proceed for whatever reason. Most of us have experienced the disappointment of all those “Sorry but this sold already” replies, and this is an example of middleman interference I can live with. Their rating system rankles though. I happen to have five stars, but with slow sales through the watered-down modern AbeBooks it wouldn’t take much to reduce that to three or four stars. “Slow” (based on sales per period) sellers can only earn four stars, even if they have 100% fulfillment, though in some cases their handful of selective sales comes to a far higher total than that of their five star colleagues in the same period. Go figure.

AbeBooks allows mega-listers to disappoint hundreds of customers, not to mention flooding the once pristine landscape with poorly described multiple copies of titles they do not even have in stock, but these mega-listers maintain a four or five star rating because they fulfill thousands of other orders for bestsellers and dreck. It is easier for unscrupulous outfits like this to simply click “will ship” on all orders—knowing that a certain percentage of customers will forget they ordered something, lose their hard drive or internet access, die, or whatever—and then simply say “Sorry, lost in the mail, here is a refund” when they do get called on it. Booksellers used to be rewarded for finding and presenting very uncommon used, out-of-print, and antiquarian titles. Now they are penalized for doing so by rigid fulfillment systems, while sellers of common new books that are easily sourced or “books” that are printed on demand thrive under these one-dimensional systems. Furthermore, many unfulfilled buyers would not be upset enough to neg professional booksellers over fruitless orders, but the AbeBooks and Alibris beancounters and computers are programmed for 100% punishment, so the entire reliability rating is unfairly skewed toward fulfillment alone, neglecting more important professional standards.

So how can a good professional bookseller lose stars? Lots of ways. You sell a newly listed hot title on one service and it gets ordered through other services before you can remove it. A formerly slow title is suddenly in demand because somebody dies or something happens, with the same result. (We could skip having a personal life or going to sleep, just to be sure two services don’t process the same order.) You own a store (and/or do book shows) and your internet stock gets moved around, or is sold before you can un-list it. (We can play it safe by removing all web stock from the shelves, but that’s just another nail in the coffin for actual bookstores worth visiting, so phooey to that practice!) You don’t have a store but you do have a lot of stock and some of it is bound to be misplaced. The online customer had no intention of keeping the book to begin with, was super finicky, or tripped up the bookseller in some other way. The customer is perturbed because you have added state sales tax to the final bill (eBay handles this aspect much better by letting you send the invoice to begin with, whereas Alibris does not allow you to charge sales tax at all). I don’t mind losing a little on shipping for a good sale, but for many booksellers if the price is low, the shipping reimbursement really low, the distance great, and the weight high, something’s gotta give. AbeBooks no longer counts cancellations based on sales tax and high shipping costs against booksellers, but not all booksellers know this. I recently asked for extra shipping on a heavy book to the U.K. for the first time ever. The buyer cancelled his order, claiming he found it cheaper somewhere else (don’t think so), but he was unable to cancel it through AbeBooks. I spent over half an hour on hold today before I could get tech support to do it from their end. If I could have tailored the shipping myself first the order probably would have gone through.

To be fair to AbeBooks, they have been somewhat responsive to the griping and I get the impression that they will try to help you maintain a high rating, but I still don’t think they quite get the whole picture. While I had the support person on I asked her how quality booksellers end up with fulfillment problems. She cited mistakes in the price, mistakes in the listings, and never letting the customer know the book was not coming, making them so angry when they received a refund weeks later instead of the needed textbook or whatever that they went out of their way to complain. When I said that answer was misleading because these are things mega-listers do, not professionals, she correctly informed me she’s there to help with specific problems and not to speculate on larger issues. Her answer was telling though, and smacks of the party line.

I’m not exactly sure how quality booksellers get down to three stars, let alone one or two stars. Some of them are probably disorganized, or they cancel orders and make the sales privately in order to avoid the commission and high credit card processing fee. For others the system is probably more to blame. We will be happy to gather and print particularly egregious low rating woes in a future issue if they have the ring of truth and if there is any interest.

AbeBooks and Alibris could and should make it much more apparent that the “reliability” rating is based on fulfillment alone, but these corporations can’t be expected to take the additional step of explaining that low fulfillment is not always the fault of and a reflection on the bookseller; or that high reliability ratings do not always equate to high standards, guaranteed fulfillment, and good service. One option would have been to record and react to these ratings privately, but it’s too late for such a retreat. The best solution at this point would be to fully ape their Amazon deity by setting up a true comment and response-based rating system. In the community debate leading up to AbeBooks’ foray into ratings, some booksellers expressed a preference for dispassionate fulfillment ratings over a true feedback system which hangs all of the laundry right out on the line, but in my experience good professional booksellers have little to be afraid of. AbeBooks and Alibris would see this evolutionary step as a potential headache, but it’s about time they shared a little pain with us. After all, we are paying much more for much less over the last several years, and this comes as another slap in the face. How would they feel if they were being rated by us? Let’s find out, because the first article in this issue of the Standard provides a very handy (and personally adaptable) bookseller and consumer-oriented five star rating tool of our own, courtesy of Stuart Manley. [And thanks to Chris Volk for feedback on this piece, as I don’t list with all the services.]

IOBAn Ellen Brown joins our semi-regular cast of contributors with a nice back to school report on the Rare Book School (not to be confused with the Colorado bookseller boot camp); Nancy Johnson ruminates on the value of price guides; there’s an interview with Judith Tingley of Meetinghouse Books and the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers; and after all that let’s share a cuppa Peruvian Joe. In the ephemera department, dumb diaries; and the book review goes Maine stream. Ellen Brown repairs to the Tool Box; where Chris Volk presents the third installment (Amazon) in her series on search service Pros and Cons. IOBA Bookseller Profiles wash ashore in Maryland, Oregon, and the U.K.; and Addenda once again takes up rear guard action.

Have a holistically five star fall, and te veremos en enero.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4

The ABE Bookseller Ratings Deception

Stuart Manley

How on earth can it be that David Brass Rare Books, a well respected ABAA antiquarian book dealer in California of over 40 years experience, is rated by ABE as a one star bookseller, yet obviously inferior re-listers such as Anybook, Best Bargain Books, Bargain Book Stores, etc., with their millions of low-grade boiler plate listings polluting the ABE site, are rated as four or even five star booksellers?

The answer, of course, is that they are not bookseller ratings at all. They are simply “fulfillment” ratings. But the presentation and the implication of the wording is that it is the overall quality of the bookseller that is being assessed by a caring ABE.

Anyone from the outside world looking at “Bookseller Rating” would assume that it meant the overall quality of the bookseller—the quality of stock, the expertise, the quality and honesty of descriptions and the quality of service. Therefore a five star bookseller is better than a three star bookseller and so on. We all know the many reasons why ABE has chosen fulfillment as the criteria and “Bookseller Rating” as the purposely misleading title, and they are all selfish to ABE, rather than for the good of their customers or member booksellers.

Is there anything we can do about it? I think there is.

For a number of years now (from when ABE started going bad) we have given our customers information on which listing sites do and don’t charge commission and how much.

We do it via a give-away leaflet in the bookshop, via a “tail” on the emails we send out, and via the book searching information page within our website. A number of other book dealers have joined us in these efforts, which is very helpful.

And it is working. Over the past three years our web-based sales have risen by almost 100%. Direct sales and sales through non-commission sites have risen dramatically over this period, but ABE sales have remained stagnant and have therefore diminished significantly as a proportion of our overall web sales.

So, slowly but surely customers are learning about, and don’t like, the extra charges, and are beginning to understand that if they go direct to the seller, or through non-commission sites, they will make significant savings.

I believe that the ABE Bookseller Rating needs a similar approach and to this end we have introduced “Booklisting Site Ratings” to our website:

http://www.barterbooks.co.uk/bb/barterstaticpages.nsf/web\staticpages/booksearch

Just as ABE chose the criteria that suited them (fulfillment) and chose to call it “Bookseller Rating” rather than “Fulfillment Rating,” we chose the criteria that we felt were most important to us and our customers: quality of listings and amount of commission charged.

The main purpose of this article is to encourage others to follow suit. Feel free to copy or link—you would be doing your customers a service. Your own version can be completely different from ours, with extra sites added and others removed as each bookseller chooses. And with your own criteria and awarding of stars.

If you have a blog, then blog it—Steve Gertz of David Brass Rare Books and friends are already hitting back:

http://www.davidbrassrarebooks.com/?p=59

http://www.bookpatrol.net/2007/08/abebooks-goes-live-with-deceptive.html

And others are on the way.

As I write, I can almost hear the moans:

“What’s the point? We’ll never beat the big sites.”

If that is your attitude, you deserve to be fleeced. Collectively we have the power to force change. True, it cannot be done head on as booksellers are notoriously difficult to gather behind a common policy, but if enough sellers take action of this nature, a slow erosion takes place and one by one customers are weaned away from the high-charging sites. And once they leave, they rarely go back. Education, education, education.

“Why pick on ABE? Alibris does the same thing.”

ABE probably gets more criticism because it was once the best book listing site on the web and was built up by that quality and through the promotion of the participating booksellers. So every adverse change, of which bookseller ratings is only the latest, tends to fuel the sense of betrayal that many booksellers feel. In any case, the Booklisting Site Ratings is aimed against all the high-charging sites, not just ABE.

Get it clear in your head: ABE is a listing site. It owns no stock, and is therefore vulnerable to better or more economical listing methods becoming available, be it Google or a new player emerging. It has made the conscious decision that bookseller loyalty and support is unimportant compared with making money. Like Amazon, eBay and Alibris, ABE has found that taking a percentage of the stock of someone else is very profitable.

Make no mistake—they are right. The path ABE has taken is considerably more profitable than the previous model, but the downside is that it includes the seeds of their own eventual destruction. Customers will find that it is cheaper to shop elsewhere, and as ABE has no loyalty to the booksellers that helped create them, those booksellers need feel no loyalty to them. If a better listing method comes along, they will desert ABE in droves.

Meantime, the best that the independent bookseller can do is to keep on supporting the independent sites such as ILAB, IOBA and TomFolio; and in the UK, PBFA and IBookNet. Give them price preference as they don’t charge commission (or uplift your prices to the commission charging sites). Give your new listings a two or three week start on their sites. Promote their qualities and integrity whenever and wherever you can.

And keep spreading the word about commission charges and Booklisting Site Ratings!

Booklisting Site Ratings

Booklisting site ratings are based on the quality of the listings (accuracy and honesty of listings etc.)
The expertise, ethics and quality of service of participating booksellers
Booklisting sites with higher ratings charge no commission fee over and above the bookseller's price and do not allow what are known as megalisters and relisters - booksellers who use 'boiler plate' descriptions because they either do not have the book in stock or have not bothered to catalogue it properly, leading to indifferent service for the customer.

ABE (Advanced Book Exchange)

Alibris

Amazon

Biblio

Choosebooks / ZVAB

eBay

IBookNet (Independent Booksellers' Network)

ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers

IOBA (Independent Online Booksellers Association)

PBFA (Provincial Book Fairs Association)

TomFolio

UKBookWorld

Key:

No commission charges and strong quality rules

Low commission charges and strong quality rules

Medium commission charges and strong quality rules

High commission charges and variable quality rules

High commission charges and weak quality rules

Stuart Manley is the co-owner of Barter Books in Alnwick Station, Northumberland, England and can be contacted at http://www.barterbooks.co.uk.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Rare Book School: A Week Among Bright Bookish Minds

Ellen Firsching Brown

In years past, aspiring book dealers learned the trade by apprenticing with experienced ones. Today, with so few “bricks and mortar” antiquarian book shops in business, those entering the field must seek out other ways to master this complex and challenging profession. In terms of formal educational opportunities, many dealers look to the highly acclaimed Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar as a means of learning the nuts and bolts of the rare book marketplace. If you find yourself looking for an historical perspective of the rare book world or an academic approach to specific areas of the field, Rare Book School (RBS) is unquestionably a good choice.

RBS, headquartered at the University of Virginia (U.Va.), is a non-profit organization offering non-credit courses on “bookish and bibliographic” subjects. All RBS faculty members are recognized experts in the rare book field. The week-long classes are scheduled throughout the summer on the U.Va. campus and at other times of the year in New York, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Affiliated RBS programs are located in Los Angeles and London. The tuition for each RBS course is currently $870.

Topics covered in Rare Book School run the gamut from ancient history up through modern technology. While many of the classes are geared towards special collections librarians, there are numerous courses of interest to those in the used and rare book trade. For example, this past summer session included classes in book illustration processes, descriptive bibliography, and the history of the London book trade.

Students are accepted to RBS courses by application. You must complete a questionnaire detailing your work history and submit a short essay describing your interest in the particular class you would like to take. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis beginning four months prior to the course start date. While the application may be off-putting to some potential attendees, the process unquestionably benefits the program by ensuring that all attendees understand the subject matter and have an articulable interest in the field.

Beyond top-notch educational opportunities, RBS offers book dealers the chance to meet people in the rare book world that they might not otherwise encounter. In addition to dealers, attendees include rare book librarians and collectors from all over the United States and several foreign countries. The chance to meet special collections librarians, whose career paths offer interesting parallels and intersections with rare book dealers, is a particularly valuable opportunity for dealers. Getting to know these librarians is a wonderful way to learn about institutional book collections and what the collections of the future might include.

In operation for 24 years, the program at Rare Book School is well-run and seamlessly organized. The schedule follows the same general format each week. Attendees arrive on Sunday night for a reception and a light supper. The evening is capped by remarks from Terry Belanger, founding director of the Rare Book School. (In 2005, Belanger was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow for his work at RBS.)

RBS courses run Monday morning through Friday afternoon. The days are full, with classes beginning at 8:30 a.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m. In the evenings, students have the opportunity to attend optional events, including guest speaker programs and book-related movies. There also is usually a bookseller night during which local used and rare book shops stay open late especially for RBS students. Friday evening closes with a reception.

Charlottesville is a lovely town with a wide range of accommodations available. While many RBS students chose to stay in local hotels, U.Va. offers RBS students the opportunity to stay on “The Lawn,” part of Thomas Jefferson’s historic Academical Village. While Lawn rooms may seem primitive (no air conditioning or attached bathrooms), they offer abundant charm in the form of hardwood floors, fireplaces, and rocking chairs from which to watch the sun set on the brick colonnade facing Jefferson’s famous Rotunda.

The curriculum at RBS is not for the faint of heart. Each class has a required advance reading list. The course registration materials explicitly state that registrants should consider withdrawing if they find themselves unable to complete the reading before the class. This preparation is a challenging but essential component of the information-packed program. The pace of the classes at RBS is brisk. Instructors hit the ground running and expect the students to do the same. Some of the courses even include evening homework assignments.

While attendees work hard at RBS, the effort is well-rewarded. Beyond being one of the only places in the world where you can take these types of courses, RBS offers valuable opportunities to build relationships with some of the brightest minds in the rare book field. You can read more about RBS and its offerings at www.virginia.edu/oldbooks.

Ellen Firsching Brown operates Liberty Hall Books out of Richmond, VA and can be contacted at http://www.libertyhallbooks.com/.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

The Price Guide Is Right (or Is It?)

Nancy Johnson

Come on down, book dealer (with apologies to Bob Barker)! I’ve got a collection of books for you—price guides on antiques, some old Mandeville’s and a few really pretty auction catalogs. Or you can have what’s behind Door Number Two.

As a bookseller specializing in books about antiques and collectible subjects, I would be looking through the boxes like a kid under the Christmas tree. But I expect many of you would see the copyright dates and subject matter and decline to purchase, regardless of the price of the lot.

What value do price guides about antiques have in the out-of-print book market? And how do we evaluate them? The date of publication is not the most important factor.

We need instead to consider first whether the price guide is a general one, like Kovel’s and Book Prices Used & Rare, or from a more specialized field such as Tomart’s Illustrated Disneyana Catalog and Price Guide. The general antiques price guide is published in excess of 50,000 copies each year, so unless your customer is looking for a particular year in order to complete a set or looking for an individual listing that appeared in only one edition, these books are not in demand and have little value. More specialized works, however, are generally not published on a yearly basis, and seldom in quantities of over 10,000 copies. (A “bestseller” in our field may equate to a total of 2,000 copies sold!) How many copies were indeed published, and in how many editions? How many other books are there on the subject? I always check the bibliography or sources when evaluating a book to ascertain its place in the timeline. If a book is the first on a given collectible topic, it matters little what date is on the cover. That’s “raw” material for the collector, and the information it holds (correct or incorrect) may have been the basis of guides that followed. Always desirable.

We then need to look at the subject matter. Books are published because an antique or collectible is popular at the time, and it needs to still be popular now. In the 1970s, people were collecting telephone pole insulators and ceramic containers that liquor was sold in. Today, there is little interest in the routine majority of those collectibles. If there is not any collector interest in a field, you won’t create any handling the reference book, nor will offering an old pricing guide at an extraordinary price create any interest in the collectible.

Is the book an illustrated value guide, or does it just list items with a brief description and then assign a value? (Note: this question is not as applicable to price guides about books.) If a reference book has good information and quality illustrations but was published in 1985, it may have more merit to the collector (and more demand for you, the seller) than a 2007 publication that does not have as much depth. Many of the most useful and consequently desirable books we stock are out-of-print titles we have purchased at shops and sales. Often there is an old date right in the title and the seller obviously did judge the book by its cover.

Are the values expressed in fixed amounts, dollar ranges, or scarcity charts or ratings? The latter two categories annoy the book buyer who doesn’t want to think, but in the long run, they are more accurate and will help maintain value in an older guide.

Auction catalogs, with estimated prices printed alongside the item’s illustration and/or description, and often with a “prices realized” sheet laid in, generally have a short life on the book market and don’t gain much value over a period of time. Catalogs from the big auction houses, which originally sold for $20 to $50 on a subscription basis, sell for a fraction of the original price. There are exceptions, and the criteria for evaluating such catalogs is basically the same as for any other pricing reference. Important British Ceramics Sale with only a fraction of the items illustrated (and in black-and-white) was important only to the consignee and Sotheby’s, whether that auction was yesterday or twenty years ago. The catalog of The Glover Collection, an auction that sent Rookwood art pottery prices out-of-sight (and from which they have not declined in almost seventeen years) is an important milestone in the sale of American pottery, and is as useful a reference work as ever was published. (Catalogs from subsequent auctions of Rookwood and other ceramics are not nearly in as much demand.)

I have made reference to Mandeville and Book Prices Used & Rare in this article, placing them in context to books on other collectible subjects. Like the rare breed of person we booksellers are, books about books is a field that doesn’t always behave like other categories. Especially with the advent of the internet. Who would have thought that AB Bookman’s Weekly, the Holy Grail for booksellers, would be one of its first victims, though in hindsight we can see why. You can cover most types of antiques in a single encyclopedic volume, but there are millions of books out there. As I try to apply the questions asked about antiques-related price guides to book price guides, I find that some questions are appropriate, while others are not. Thus, at this point in the discussion, I’ll be satisfied that I got the price of the washer and dryer correct, and let my learned colleagues gamble everything on the cruise to Jamaica. In other words, somebody should write a future IOBA Standard article on the issue of the printed price guide, new and old, for values of books.

Nancy Johnson operates Nancy Johnson, Bookseller out of Denver, CO and can be reached at http://www.nancyjohnsonbookseller.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

An Interview with Judith Tingley of Meetinghouse Books and MARIAB

Shawn Purcell

-Hi Judith. What is your life story before getting into bookselling, in one paragraph (and no cheating with a fifty page paragraph)?

Hi, Shawn, and thanks for giving me this opportunity to blab about myself. I grew up on a farm in rural Indiana. Dad taught high school science, while Mom was in charge of the homefront.Both Mom and Dad took care of me and my big sister Jane, and all of us together took care of a passel of chickens, cats, and dogs, plus Rackety the raccoon and the occasional rescued bird—not to mention a couple of vegetable gardens and lots of flowerbeds (Mom has always had a special touch with flowers). After finishing 9th grade in the local school (our entire class consisting, if I remember correctly, of five girls and seven boys), I was trundled off to boarding school in Wisconsin. There, surrounded by sweater sets and pleated skirts, I became the rebel girl I remain today. From there it was college at the University of Chicago where my time was spent less in bookstores (though there were some wonderful ones in Hyde Park and still are) and more in the stacks of the U of C's magnificent Regenstein Library where I spent hours chuckling over original copies of the New Yorker from the 1930s and falling in love with S. J. Perelman when I should have been researching water imagery in the works of Virginia Woolf. Ah, well.

-What are your first memories of books?

Well, since so many family members on both sides were teachers I always got the Newbery and Caldecott award winners for Christmas and birthdays. But my very earliest recollection of books involves cuddling with my Mom while she held a book open so I could look, too, as she read to me in her soft voice. Eventually, and to my utter amazement, I began to understand the words as she read them and then we were really reading together. That's about the most lovely memory of my early life. Thanks, Mom.

-What attracted you to bookselling?

Sturgis, the town closest to our farm, was across the state border in Michigan. In this town was a stationer's shop. In the back of this shop was a section of books. The place was owned by a wonderful old English couple. I wondered then and I still wonder how it happened that they settled in this place of all possible places. At any rate, I loved everything about their shop—paper bundles in various sizes and colors, writing instruments, beautiful leather journals, curious objects of diverse uses. And, of course, the books. I was a shy child but they made me feel at home. They saw that I was in love with books and they let me look, even though I could afford to buy very little. They had a wonderful collection of Dover and New Directions books. They introduced me to the works of Stevie Smith and Will Cuppy. Their shop had books which were so much more interesting to me than the dreary teen romances and series books available in the county library. I'll always remember that shop as one of the most magical places of my childhood. I believe it instilled in me the idea that selling books could be a rewarding and honorable profession.

-Where have you toiled in the field, and where did you run your own shops?

After college I stayed in Chicago for a while, working for the Little Sisters of the Poor (and no, I was never on my way to becoming a nun myself!). I would often stop at a used bookshop on my way home and one evening the owner said to me, "You're always in here anyway, why don't we just hire you?" And they did. I worked there as a part-timer for a few years, working my way from looking up paperback prices in Books In Print to handling the front counter while the two owners (the both of them quintessentially curmudgeonly booksellers) drank Guinness and pontificated to each other. I became friendly with a co-worker, whose dream (since realized) was to open his own shop. I'd never considered this as a possibility for myself before, but soon realized that my own bookshop had to be, almost inevitably, my eventual goal. But I needed more experience, more money, and, well, more books—at least more books that I was willing to sell from my own private stash. When I made the momentous decision to move to Boston, I knew I wanted to work in a bookstore full-time. I applied to a well-known shop and was told that since the job involved lifting books, and since I was a girl, I couldn't be hired (those were the days, eh?). After several Kelly Girl stints I finally found a home at the Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop on Newbury Street in Boston, where owner Vince McCaffrey and manager Tom Owen became my employers, mentors, and friends to this day. The Avenue Victor Hugo closed its doors a few years ago and is sorely missed, although both Vince and Tom are both still fighting the good fight and selling books on the internet.

Of course, I spent as much of my salary as I could on books, both for myself and for my dream shop. While I was still working at the AVH I started my own little business of quoting to books-wanted ads in the AB Bookman's Weekly. I looked forward with breathless anticipation to receiving the AB on Thursday, then spent most of that evening in a comfy chair with my feet up and bright yellow highlighter in hand, seeing what was on hand that I could quote out. Of course, the actual quoting involved laboriously writing, by hand, several postcards a week, most of which were ignored. Still, I sold enough to make some extra money on the side and to maintain my optimism.

Eventually I took the big step, bade farewell to the AVH, and opened up my first shop in the middle of Davis Square, Somerville, MA. It was the size of a walk-in closet, and something of an experiment. If I could make this work, I thought, I could possibly make enough money to open a "real" store. At first people would wander in looking puzzled and asking "encouraging" questions like, "Is this all there is?" and "This is the tiniest store I've ever been in!" But I persevered and managed to cram a lot of books into that tiny space. After my three year lease was up, I got a lease on a larger place down the street where I stayed for six years. I had a nice landlord and Davis Square was (still is) a great place, filled with interesting people and things to do, close to Tufts University and just a few subway stops from Harvard Square.

-Ken Haverly is your book mate. How did you meet, and do you find it fairly uncommon for couples to be equal partners in the bookselling business?

Book mate and life's companion! Ken and I met through mutual friends in Boston soon after my move there. I remember going to a party at his house in Somerville and thinking, wow, what a great music collection! But Ken himself I found somewhat intimidating, as he sat with his cronies in a corner of the room, surveying the scene from behind a very large beard, looking cool and enigmatic, making the occasional witty remark. Later I ran into him in line at the Boston Public Library, of all places, where we were both checking out books. He walked me home, we discovered that we liked lots of the same things, and became friends. When my Dad had a stroke and I took a leave of absence to take care of him in Indiana, Ken was wonderfully supportive even at long distance, my best correspondent by far. When Dad had recovered and I was able to come back east, both Ken and my job (thanks, Vince!) were waiting for me.

Ken and I didn't start out as working partners, although we do both love books. Ken actually worked as an electronics technician for a long time, including a stint working with Henry Kloss on prototypes for audio systems. When we came out here, Ken pared away the electronics and started spending more time with books, and now has his own business selling books and occasionally records. He also keeps his hand in the technical side, designing computer programs for our own use and occasionally doing consulting work for other booksellers.

-You loaded up the truck and you moved to South Deerfield, in Western Massachusetts, that is, Happy Valley, the sleepy west of the woody east, one of the coolest regions in the whole dang country. How did that happen, and tell us about the history of the building you are in.

We knew we didn't want to pay rent forever, either on an apartment or on a shop. And rents were skyrocketing in Davis Square at the time. Since Cambridge no longer had rent control, the Somerville landlords were getting a lot of business and went a little crazy themselves. We were also looking for a bit less asphalt and a bit more green in our lives. At first we tried a stint in Wellesley, where I operated Blue Moon Bookshop for a few years. But it didn't take long to figure out that the suburbs were not for us. In the meantime, rent and overhead were going up, up, up. We decided we needed to own our own building for our own peace of mind, and we could not afford what we needed in the Boston area.

We'd been going to the Oinonen Book Auctions in Northampton every few weeks, leaving early on Tuesday and not getting back sometimes until the middle of the night. We kept telling Dick Oinonen that the trip was too much, we'd just have to move out west eventually if we wanted to keep coming to his auctions. He thought we were joking, but as it turns out, we weren't. We fell in love with this area of Massachusetts, which struck us as having a more rural, more laid-back version of the Davis Square vibe. Lots of interesting people—working folks, artisans, musicians, academics, and eccentrics of all sorts—lots of great places to visit—five nearby colleges—great music and great food. The only differences were 1) it's actually easy to park in the towns of the West; 2) the place is filled with fresh produce; and 3) you are never far from a lovely tree-lined winding road which is fun to navigate, either by car or on bike.

We'd already spent a lot of time looking at "commercial properties" in our price range by the time we encountered our Meetinghouse. Tired of slogging through squishy basements (quaint!), measuring the dampstains on old walls (original Victorian wallpaper!), and inhaling lungsful of the dust of good old rotten timber (rustic!), we decided to see what we could find in the way of more unconventional buildings. This led us to our Meetinghouse, which we visited as a sort of afterthought on our way back from an afternoon's ramblings. As soon as we entered, we knew this was the place. When we left, we looked at each other and both said, "Could you live in an old church building?" and grinned that yes, we could. And now we do.

According to county records, our building dates back to 1850, but the Congregationalist Church across the street from us says it's more like 1870. In any case, it's a sturdy old two-story clapboard building originally intended as a chapel, then used as a Sunday school, then (1920s - 1970s) a Masonic lodge and finally a Grange building used for various community events such as Girl Scout sales, roast beef dinners, dances, etc. A building, in other words, with a most interesting past, and I hope a long, long future as an open bookstore.

-Any ghostly vibes there late at night?

No, dang it! Ironic, since I love all things spooky, and am a big fan of Victorian (and other) ghost stories. I hereby invite all friendly ghosts to submit their resumes. I'd love to play host to a blithe spirit (no poltergeists need apply). Of course there are those ghosts of authors and owners of our books lingering between the covers—wisps of hearts and souls and minds that went into the writing and the reading of them.

-No bosses, and now no landlords. Congratulations! Did you have to make any improvements?

Thanks—but I'm afraid I have to admit that both Ken and I are terrible slavedrivers as employers and, as the downtrodden employed, we're both constantly threatening to go on strike. As landlords go, we're pretty cool and let our tenants, us, decorate the place any crazy way we want to.

First thing we had to do was get the building approved as "mixed use" by our town's zoning board. For this we drew up lots of diagrams, consulted with building engineers, and made several trips back and forth to attend meetings. Let's see—we had to put in sufficient parking for five cars out front, and firewall in between every contiguous surface between our apartment (the back portion of the first floor) and the rest of the building (to be used as the store). This included putting in a new wall across the huge room taking up most of the first floor in order to separate our apartment. We put in a state-of-the-art smoke alarm system, and had an electrician come in to inspect wiring and replace some of the old stuff. There was much discussion of bathrooms. At first we were told we'd have to put in two bathrooms upstairs AND two bathrooms downstairs for customer use, but thankfully we were able to refer back to official code requirements which allowed us simply to keep the one that was already in place. Our apartment, of course, was a whole other story. We were very fortunate that there was already a huge kitchen in place (remember all those aforementioned roast beef dinners?) and a bathroom, so all we had to do was put in a shower and a new sink and we were pretty much set. The apartment is more or less one big space separated by bookcases, which takes me back to the old days of living in a loft.

-What about shelving?

In Boston we'd acquired our shelving bit by bit as we needed it. Plain, functional pine cases only, which we got cheap and which we are still using to this day. Since our move we've continued to add cases and have an excellent source for them right here in town. It's a company where developmentally challenged young people are given the opportunity to become expert craftsmen, making very sturdy, economical pine cases to our specifications.

-What quirks does the building have?

We have very nice old etched window panes which, however, we cannot see out of. Sometimes it can get a bit claustrophobic. Thank goodness that over the years some of these panes were broken and subsequently replaced with plain panes. I can, for example, look out at our backyard as I'm doing the dishes and wave hello to the squirrels.

-What are your specialties?

We've always said we specialize in good, interesting books in lots of categories. Mostly humanities, mostly inexpensive, though we do get the occasional high-priced rarity. Our customers tell us that we have excellent collections of literature, science fiction and fantasy, cultural history, and performing arts. We also have some vintage prints for sale—I especially love the wonderful old botanicals and early Victorian animal prints, but basically if it's interesting and we like it, we try to acquire it for the shop. That goes for books as well as prints! I keep trying to talk my sister Jane, a talented nature photographer, into letting me sell some of her work in the store, but so far I've had no luck with her. Still hoping you'll send me some of your stuff, Sis!

-How do you acquire most of your stock?

Just about every way you can think of. We buy some of our books from customers, of course, when they decide to winnow or when they move (this being an academic community, moving does happen fairly often). We buy books at auction, and at benefit book sales, and from institutions. We make house calls and we travel throughout New England to do so. We buy from other booksellers. If we see a yard sale, we stop to see if there are any books. And I must also report that in the past few years we have had the bittersweet experience of buying books from several bookstores that were in the process of closing their doors.

-Can you share some stellar finds and sales with us?

A few of my favorites are the Borges 1st US edition of Other Inquisitions which was filed in with the religious books at one benefit sale (moral: look at every section, no matter what you assume will or will not be there); and some original handbills dating from Dr. King's 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery which were tucked inside a box of books on African American history bought at auction. And then there's the rare book we found in an obscure bookstore on one of our trips to to the Midwest. The bookstore was not in any guides; we just happened upon it in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by corn fields. The most rickety, decrepit place you can imagine, from the outside it looked like an old chicken shack, but the sign said "Books" so in we went. The inside wasn't much better, dark and gloomy with cobwebs covering the bottom shelves and a grizzled little man behind the counter who informed us of the glories of his military history books. These all seemed to be, regardless of any distinguishing characteristics such as flyspecks, mold, or missing pages, priced at $50 each. No more, no less. $50 seemed to be his price for these treasures and he was sticking to it. Now, I hate to leave any bookstore, no matter how doomed and pathetic it appears to be, without buying something. But in this case a little something, not a $50 something, would really have to do. If I could only find a "little" something, that is. I poked around some amongst the cobwebs in the fiction section on a lower shelf and uncovered an early novel by an important woman author in dust jacket, somehow having survived its years on this shelf undamaged, with nary a nibble from any critters that were undoubtedly roaming about the floorboards. But, was it going to be $50 like the military history books? Or even more, because of its condition? No! I should have known! This was a novel by a woman, so must therefore be a romance and so was priced at a mere $5. Probably the cheapest book in the store. I bought it immediately, not asking for a dealer discount, and we fled. I sold the book for a healthy profit immediately upon our return to a first edition specialist who put it in a catalogue at very much more than he paid for it, and it has been merrily changing hands ever since.

-Tell us about the one(s) that got away.

Just last week Ken found a copy of a rare book having to do with 16th Century Portugal at a sale of a local professor's estate books. Ken got the book home and looked it over more closely. It had some stamping on it from a well-known university library and, since it was not stamped "withdrawn" Ken checked the library's records to make sure the book was okay to sell. As it turned out, the book had been listed as "lost" for years. Ken contacted the library, which was happy to have its copy back (sent by FedEx immediately). Ken was a bit sad to see it go, but happy to help the library out. I figure his karma rating is now way off the charts and I am expecting him to find something glorious on our front step any minute now.

-What percentage of your inventory is online, and is that mixed in or kept separate?

Funny you should ask, Shawn! Just last week I was considering how I hadn't changed my online listings for a very long time (having been kept busy most of this year with the bookshop and various MARIAB doings). I came to the conclusion that the thing to do would be to wipe the slate clean and start almost from scratch. So we deleted listings that had been online and not selling for up to ten years or so, and now I'm left with exactly 70 titles online. Seventy. That is, let's see, .2% of my total inventory. Not two per cent mind you, but point two per cent. I reckon that when my tenure as MARIAB President ends in a few months I'll have more time to do stuff online and eventually I'll get back to my "normal" few thousand titles, or about 5% of the shop's inventory.

That said, I try to keep my walk-in customers foremost in mind. I figure that if they've made the effort to visit the shop they have a right to see what I have for sale, whether it's listed online or not. So unless a book is exceptionally fragile I shelve it right in with the "regular" inventory. I have a primitive system (penciled checkmark on fep) for keeping track of what's online, and a book where I enter sold titles so they can be deleted efficiently. Of course, if I ever achieve more than a few thousand titles online I will probably have to adopt another system, but I've always seen the open shop as my first love, and my walk-in customers as my first priority. I don't, in other words, see how I'll ever have enough time away from the shop to maintain an enormous database of online listings.

Ken, on the other hand, sells books and music regularly on eBay, and has some of his own listings on the online databases.

-On average, how many visitors do you have each day, which will vary seasonally of course, and roughly what percentage of them are known to you?

I've never been able to figure out averages of anything. I do know that there doesn't seem to be rhyme nor reason to what days will be busy and what days won't. Having a shop here is certainly different than having it in the middle of Davis Square or (as in the case of the AVH) on Newbury Street in Boston. Not as much walk-in traffic, to be sure, but the folks who do come, come on purpose to look at books—not to get out of the rain or pass time while waiting for a bus. We've had days here when NO ONE has come in, not a single soul. Followed by days and days of steady traffic.

This area has readers who live here all year long. It also has a large academic community which shifts around a bit from term to term. We get tourists who visit for different reasons during the course of the year. It's a nice day trip from either Boston or NYC. People come for the antique shops, the antiques auctions and fairs, for the brilliant fall foliage, for events held at the colleges and museums, some even come especially for the bookshops!

Need I mention that Yankee Candle, right here in South Deerfield, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in New England? And of course, Historic Deerfield is right down the road from us and holds some very interesting exhibitions.

-Some unusual things you've seen in bookstores?

I've seen people dancing in the aisles of my own bookstore, which made me very happy. I've also seen desperate men trying to sell moldy books retrieved from dumpsters, which made me very sad.

-There is a fairly high concentration of quality booksellers in the Pioneer Valley. Were you well and hospitably received?

Yes, there are some great booksellers in the Valley, and several of them got together and gave us a party on our arrival. Not only that, they actually put an ad in the paper for our newly opened shop! Now, that's hospitality. I think most of us Valley booksellers look at it as a real plus that we have so many open shops. The more shops, the more people are drawn to the area for book-buying trips. The New York Times has done an article on the Pioneer Valley bookshops, and the local free weekly the Valley Advocate came out with a guide to shops along Route 5/10 just a few weeks ago. We're all booksellers, but we all have our own methods and our own inventories. Each store is a reflection of its owner's personality, interests, energy, and expertise. Together, we complement each other; we refer customers to one another's shops all the time; and we get along quite happily here in the Valley.

-And what about the South Deerfield reception?

Even though we had jump through hoops for the zoning committee, our reception in general was great. People brought us bouquets of flowers and lots of well wishes. A considerable number have become customers and even friends.

-Where should one have lunch after visiting your shop?

What do you feel like? Right here in town there's a place for organic pizza, an old-fashioned luncheonette, and a cafe with internet access. Down the road apiece (as we say in the country) is some of the best BBQ I've ever had (chicken, pork, or beef) at Bub's—which also offers such delicacies as ostrich burgers and alligator tail. If you're willing to drive the few miles to Amherst or Northampton, you can have anything from Thai to Mexican to several varieties of Indian to vegetarian to burgers and fries. Not to mention ice cream. Loads of good ice cream, including the homemade kind, from local dairies.

-You are the current president of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers. Tell us your understanding of the history of this organization.

MARIAB started out in the mid-seventies as a small organization of bookseller friends who put on an annual book fair in Cambridge. Since then it has grown to include every sort of bookseller, from fair-goers to online-only sellers to catalogue dealers, to open shops, to every possible combination of these. We have evolved from putting out a slender directory of booksellers to quite a sophisticated version, and have also developed a useful website at www.mariab.org.

-How many members do you have, and what does it take to join?

Right now we have 140 members, with a few applications pending. To become a member you have to be a bookseller with a place of business in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. You must provide written references from two current MARIAB members, and you must also provide a letter of your own in which you describe your book experience, type of business, areas of expertise, and anything else you think we should know about you. You must assert that you will abide by the MARIAB Code of Ethics as presented on the MARIAB website.

-MARIAB is in the middle of New England Independent Booksellers Association country, and right next to fellow entities such as the New Hampshire Antiquarian Booksellers Association. Does Rhode Island ever talk about seceding?

Gosh, I sure hope not! I think it's great that Rhode Island and Massachusetts have clubbed together and I LOVE Rhode Island booksellers! Actually, what discussions I've heard have had to do more with collaboration than secession. I'd love to see some sort of regional organization develop which could incorporate all the New England states. There's strength in numbers, people! NEBA, I should add, is a very useful organization which serves primarily independent sellers of new books.

-What services do regional bookseller associations such as MARIAB provide?

Regional bookseller organizations can provide congeniality and cooperation between booksellers, and greater recognition and trust from the public at large for the booksellers serving it. MARIAB prints an annual directory of dealers, with an index of specialties and a map so it's easy to find a particular bookseller, a bookseller with a particular specialty, and the open shops in different communities. These directories are helpful to both booksellers and book buyers, and they are distributed widely. We also maintain a website with all the information from the directory plus upcoming events, any changes in dealer information since the last printed directory was published, and other announcements. We also maintain a MARIAB online mailing list for email communication between members.

Regional organizations can also create opportunities for booksellers to get together and discuss issues in person. We have four quarterly meetings to which every member is invited, and at which we have lively discussions of ideas and proposed projects. A little bit like, in fact, a good old-fashioned New England town meeting. Sometimes ideas spring out of the synergy of face-to-face meetings that no one would have thought of on his own. We also have guest lecturers from time to time at our quarterly meetings, including specialist dealers, representatives of other aspects of the book trade, and museum curators.

This past spring we held a very successful workshop concentrating on online selling for MARIAB members. We went in with an outline for morning and afternoon sessions and mainly held to it, in a pretty informal but guided "brainstorming" style. The success of this workshop was due mainly to the willingness of participants to share their experiences with the various online venues. We quite deliberately did NOT set up the workshop as an opportunity for any venue to promote itself, counting on our own members and our webmaster for their expertise. There were participants ranging from absolute beginners to seasoned online sellers and believe me, we all came away knowing something we didn't know before. Plus, it was fun to get together for a frank and open discussion of online issues. Now I hear that the Vermont Antiquarian Booksellers Association will be holding a similar workshop, and I say good for them!

As for MARIAB, we've voted our desire to have future workshops. We have a number of topics which have been suggested as possible subjects for future workshops and we'll be discussing these at our next quarterly meeting.

And, of course, we still sponsor two book fairs a year, as we have done from close to the beginning.

Judith studying compact book storage, starting late!

-What duties do you have as president?

What I've tried to accomplish during my tenure as president is to promote all kinds of bookselling, since they're all vitally important to the trade. Whether you have an open shop, or sell strictly online, or only issue catalogues, or haul your books from fair to fair—as long as you act professionally and ethically as a bookseller, you are an equal member of our team. As president, I've tried to stress the importance of inclusion and cooperation. We booksellers are colleagues, not competitors, and everyone benefits from this attitude—especially the book-buying public.

-Anything exciting coming up for MARIAB?

Yes, indeed. We'll be having our annual Pioneer Valley Antiquarian Book Fair on Sunday, October 21, at the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton, MA. This has always been one of my favorite fairs, with its scores of excellent booksellers offering a wide variety of merchandise in the setting of a town known for its own offbeat style as well as a sense of its history and its commitment to culture. The Book Fair will be held at the height of the fall foliage season, and all in all I would recommend this as a great weekend trip for just about anyone.

On a smaller scale, local MARIAB members have been invited by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association to take part in its "Big Read" event to be held Saturday, October 6, in Old Deerfield. This happens to be the final day of this year's "Banned Books Week" and since our community's "Big Read" book is Fahrenheit 451, the PVMA has organized an event which will allow us booksellers not only to sell our wares, but to display our commitment to the "Freedom to Read." For example, our South Deerfield neighbor Schoen Books will be there not to sell at all, but will display an exhibit on Book Burning and the Holocaust. I'll be bringing along some information on banned and suppressed books, as well as books to sell, and MARIAB will have its own display having to do with upcoming events and community outreach.

-Thanks for your time Judith. Keep up the good work, and best wishes.

Thanks for inviting me, Shawn. This has been fun. I should mention that the Standard has been a consistently outstanding resource for years, thanks to your own excellent work and that of your predecessors. Also, all good wishes to IOBA, an organization I much admire and which I believe holds many of the same goals and ideals as does MARIAB.

Judith Tingley and Ken Haverly operate Meetinghouse Books in South Deerfield, MA and can be contacted at http://www.meetinghousebooks.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

A Book Dealer Visits Peru, or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Joe Perlman

In July I fulfilled a life-long dream of visiting Peru, accompanied by my wife and two adult children. The trip was exceedingly difficult to prepare for as we were traveling to a wide variety of locations, altitudes, and climates, but with stringent luggage limitations.

As usual, I bought a few books to prepare myself for the journey. The first one was a rather dry, brief traveler’s history of Peru. If I had read this before I planned the trip, I might have changed the destination since it made the country seem rather boring. I then skimmed through two guide books: Footprints, a rather snobbish British one, and the ubiquitous Lonely Planet. If I had bought them before I planned the trip, I might have been scared off, since both were replete with warnings about the difficulties of traveling in so poor and crime-ridden a country as Peru. As the old saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

This lack of information necessitated numerous calls to the travel agency I booked the trip through, but none of its staff had been on this particular tour. They advised bringing a down jacket and ski hat for the evenings in the Andes (July is their winter) and towels since some hotels charge extra. Fortunately, I spoke to my corporate travel agent, who had been to Peru in June of 2006. She told me that in all her photos she is wearing shorts, and maybe a sweatshirt, and assured me there was no need to bring a winter jacket. She also said that she found the country had an ample supply of linens, so out went the warm clothes and the towels. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, since I now had room in my suitcase for some extra reading materials.

We flew into Lima, the capital of Peru, and spent the following day touring the old city. Lima was never part of the Incan civilization. Rather, it was a city designed and built by the Spanish. The architecture is Spanish Colonial, and most of the historic buildings are religious in nature. The monastery of San Francisco houses one of the largest and oldest libraries in all of South American. Our guide showed us the main reading room and spoke with great pride about the treasures on the shelves. I looked around and was aghast, as this famous library would make any ardent bibliophile weep. The climate in Lima is overcast and humid most of the year. The building has no climate controls and after centuries of neglect, most of the books are covered in must, dust or a combination of both, and the beautiful leather spines are starting to peel off. I wanted to remove my T shirt and use it to begin cleaning some of them off, but the rest of the crew was in a hurry to get to the Archeological Museum before closing time. Before we left, we did go down into the monastery’s catacombs to see the large collection of skeletons. In contrast to the books, the bones are still in remarkably good condition.

The Museum taught us how little is actually known about the early Peruvian civilizations. None had a written language so much of the information about the rise and fall of the various tribes, including the Incas, is largely speculative. We did learn that they kept census records by weaving knots into fabric.

The Cuzco Cathedral described by Che as an overly made-up old woman

The next day we flew to Cuzco, the center of the old Incan empire. By now, I realized that the guide books were misleading. This was not Dickensian London, so I did not have to keep my eyes out for pickpockets around every corner. Museums the guides rated as not to be missed were, in general, rather ho hum, while other sites that were merely mentioned turned out to be much more interesting.

We did encounter some unexpected difficulties, not mentioned in the guide books, because the country was experiencing major strikes and protest demonstrations. The unrest began when the government announced that it would require all teachers in the country to be re-certified with a new certification exam. All of the teachers went on strike and were joined by several other unions. We heard two different arguments. Some people said the education standards are low and in dire need of improvement. Others said the examinations would be political and serve as an excuse to eliminate teachers with views to the left of the present, conservative government. I don’t feel qualified to take sides, but given the level of unrest, I would not be surprised if motivation for the legislation is more political than educational. We were lucky to arrive in Cuzco when we did, because the next day the demonstrators actually succeeded in closing the airport for a few days by starting brush fires nearby.

While the protestors were busy disrupting air traffic, we managed to spend several days touring the Incan ruins in and around Cuzco and the surrounding area which is known as the Sacred Valley. Within the city, the Spanish managed to destroy the Incan temples and build their churches on top of the old foundations, but there are still some large archeological sites out in the countryside, such as Saqsaywaman which overlooks the city. Some guides say it was a fortress, others say there were no fortresses at that time in South America, but they all agree on its nickname, and it call it “the Sexy Woman,” though the word is from the Quechua language and actually means “Satisfied Falcon.”

There are one or two bookstores in Cuzco which I had hoped to visit, but the local tour company was very disorganized which meant we got a late start every morning and did not return to the city until after the bookshops had closed. The gift shops, in contrast, remained open until the last tourist in town was tucked safely into bed.

Fortunately, I brought extra reading material so I was in no danger of running out of books. Several of the hotels we stayed in had small libraries where you could take a book you wanted to read and replace it with one you had finished. Naturally, I carefully examined all of these rather motley collections. The English language selections were rather scanty, and there was never anything worth swapping for. I did learn that most travelers, no matter where they come from, prefer the same light reading (i.e., John Grisham and Danielle Steele) as Americans do. These books are widely translated, and dog-eared paperbacks in many languages were readily available in every hotel.

The most useful book I brought to read turned out to be Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries. For those unfamiliar with this wonderful work, Mr. Guevara and a friend took some time off from medical school to travel around South America on a motorcycle in the early 1950s. Their travels took them through Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, etc. and his experiences helped radicalize his political thinking. Many of his observations are as true today as fifty years ago when he wrote them. For instance, as a medical doctor he was appalled at the sanitary conditions in Peru, such as the custom of not flushing toilet paper but placing it in a basket next to the commode, a practice that continues in some areas to this day. He also found the Spanish churches in Peru gaudy and cheap looking, compared to the simple symmetrical beauty of the Incan architecture. He wrote: “Gold doesn’t have the dignity of silver which becomes more charming as it ages, and so the cathedral seems to be decorated like an old woman with too much make-up.”

According to the Incas, gold was the sweat of the sun, while silver was the tears of the moon. I highly recommend the book to anyone traveling to South America.

After two days in Cuzco, we took the famous zigzagging train up to Aguas Calientes, a small town at the base of Machu Picchu. There were no bookstores there, but I did manage to buy the memoirs of Hiram Bingham, the American who is credited with “discovering” Machu Picchu (the Native Americans knew about it for centuries—they just never bothered to tell their conquerors), and an interesting collection of Incan myths and legends. I also managed to soak in the mineral baths that the town is named after, although I found them closer to tepid than caliente.

Joe and family at the Sun Gate overlooking Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is one of the most spectacular archeological sites that I have ever seen, and for me it was the highlight of the trip. It ranks up there in my personal pantheon with the Acropolis in Athens. It is built high up in the Andes, and when you stand far away you can gaze at it for hours, as the constantly changing light keeps revealing different patterns and structures.

When you walk around the site there are mountain views and interesting architectural angles in every direction. Because the Incas left no written records, even the name of the city remains a mystery. Machu Picchu is actually the name of the mountain that the city was built on, but the city’s name has been lost to the ages. After a long day exploring the site, we sadly boarded the train for another long zigzag ride back down the mountain to Cuzco.

The following morning we boarded a bus for Puno, which is the central town in the Lake Titicaca region. We spent the day traveling through the Pampas, or high flatlands. This is the home of alpacas and llamas and you see them grazing on both sides of the road with snow-capped mountains in the distance. In some sections the altitude is as high as 1400 feet above sea level.

Puno is a small, bustling city that serves as the major Peruvian port for Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. The main reason to stay in Puno is to take a boat tour around the lake. The tour takes you to visit the Uros, a Native American tribe that was dispossessed by their enemies many years ago so they moved to the lake district and built their own small islands out of reeds. About ten families dwell on each island, which lasts for seventeen years or so and then needs to be rebuilt.

Almost everything is constructed out of reeds, including their houses, their boats, and their furniture. We visited two different islands, watched some of the women making dinner over reed fires, and bought some decorative reed mobiles from the children.

We then took a long boat ride to the middle of the lake to the natural island of Taquile. This island while larger than the reed islands is still small. Its inhabitants still farm and weave the way their ancestors have done for centuries, without electricity and modern technology. Occasionally there is a house with a solar panel which is used to power a television set.

When we returned to Puno, I had some free time to wander around the town. I saw a few signs that said “La Libreria,” Spanish for bookstore, but they turned out to be stationary stores that primarily sold school supplies along with a small selection of paperbacks, comic books and magazines.

Proud papa with his children’s academic honors

On the way to the airport for a flight back to Lima, our tour guide took us to visit one of the local farmers. His farm was a multi-generational compound which consisted of communal cooking and storage facilities, along with individual mud brick sleeping houses for each family. They raise alpacas, and potatoes and quinoa. We sampled some of the fresh baked potatoes, though I declined the offer to dip them in sauce made from mud containing salt deposits that they use for seasoning. They tasted delicious enough without any condiments. He took us inside to see his sleeping quarters, and to my surprise one whole mud brick wall was filled with his children’s academic honor roll certificates and school medals. He was very proud of them, and it was encouraging in so rural an outpost to see such a profound respect for education.

The last day in Lima I finally had the opportunity to visit some bookstores. We stayed in the section of the city called Miraflores, which is a cosmopolitan, up-scale residential district. The bookstores were modern, clean and well-lit. I decided to try to buy some serious Peruvian writers in English translation, but did not have too much success. The English language sections were small, and consisted mainly of books appealing to tourists with a preference for popular fiction and tour guides. They did have translations of Mario Vargas Llosa, but he is widely published in the United States, and I already have all of his books. I managed to find one or two obscure, serious Peruvian novels in English translation. I also bought a few books in Spanish—a special commemorative edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of my two favorite books of the second half of the 20^th Century, and a miniature Don Quixote.

Miniature books are very popular in Peru, and there is a publisher who puts out a whole collection of tiny books, mostly classics. They have decorative covers, and are about two inches by one and a quarter inch in size. Don Quixote comprises two volumes. To my surprise, the best selling volume is a Spanish translation of the Kama Sutra. Both of my children wanted one, but we were able to find only one copy. It is the one book in the series that you don’t need to speak Spanish to appreciate, since it has a lot of pictures, which as they say, are worth a thousand words.

This is one of the few times that I arrived home from a trip without regretting books that I neglected to buy, since I think I bought all six of the books that I was at all interested in. In fact, what I regretted was some of the books I bought before I left. I quickly put the dry history and useless guide books up for sale on Half.com and rearranged the G section to make a place of honor for The Motorcycle Diaries. Occasionally as I pass by the shelf, I see the book, look up at it, and say, “Yes, Che, you were right. Problems abound, but the people and the sights and the architecture are still spectacularly beautiful.”

Joe Perlman operates Mostly Useful Fictions out of East Northport, NY and can be contacted at http://www.mostlyusefulfictions.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Ephemeral Assays: Self Listing

Shawn Purcell

When making a large haul, all kinds of things turn up in the net. Even if it’s only books, rather than loads of paper, inscriptions and the things that fall out of books often give you some picture of the previous owner.

While whipping through a load of estate books recently, I nearly threw a newer-looking one in the discard/recycle pile, rather than the price, check, keep for myself, or donate piles. That’s because it was written in. The title was List Your Self: Listmaking as the Way to Self-Discovery, by Ilene Segalove and Paul Bob Velick (Kansas City, MO: Andrews and McMeel, 1996). Now one could goof on this book at length to begin with, as an interactive example of cheesy self-help titles, but the authors kind of make their point in the introduction, and in this case they got results. The owner was moved to record personal facts and thoughts. Most of her personal papers were simply discarded, and although she mentions teen diaries and adult journals several times, it is thought that she either destroyed these or instructed her executor to do so.

There are ten categories: Yourself, Daily Life, Business, Change, Culture, Men and Women, Greater Truths, Health, Growing Up, and Suddenly. Each includes thirty or so topics with a full lined page for responses.

Some of the headings are pretty silly. List all the smells that make you scream. List what’s under your kitchen sink. List what kinds of people should never drive cars. List what’s consistently in your garbage. List all the greetings you’ve used to answer your telephone. List all the warnings you’ve heard about the evils of business. List the dangerous things you have done for money. List those restrictions, from stop signs to gravity, that you can’t stand living with. List the way you feel when a car alarm goes off. List all the things that could happen to you when you park in an underground structure. List what you like to do after sex. List your surefire sexy moves and lines. List the drugs you’ve tried. List what you know about the human body. List all the things you do to stop hiccupping. Suddenly you’ve arrived on Jupiter. List the things you can’t live without.

Many are good though, and some of her responses are recorded as follows.

List the places you go in your mind when you want some peace and quiet.

-Back to our camp on the [X] Pond—many happy memories.
-Fishing with [husband] in Quebec, Canada 250 mi. N. West of Montreal. What beautiful country.
-Church—when children are quiet & well-behaved.
-My easy chair in living room.

List all the names you’ve been called, endearing and not so.

-Bitch
-Know it all
-Opinionated
-Judgmental

List what always makes you laugh.

-Tickling my ribs & feet. Doctors are forewarned!
-Children when happy and/or surprised.
-A good joke.
-At or to myself over some stupid mistake of mine—example, putting mail in fridge.

List the ways you don’t care to die.

-Burn
-Auto accident
-Drown
-Long term cancer

List the animals that really scare you.

-Snakes
-Chickens
-Feathered creatures
-Horses and cows
-Rats

List the heroic feats you’ve performed.

Olive says I saved her from drowning. I don’t remember.

List the things you’ve said that you’d like to take back.

Once when I was a wise, know it all teenager, I asked my mom—“Why do you hate me?” She surprised me by breaking into tears. So did I!

List the brand names you buy and swear by.

-Tylenol & Tylenol P.M.
-Hannaford tissues
-Helmbold’s hot dogs, bologna & liverwurst
-Pam
-Tide or All
-Charmin
-Most of Schwan’s products
-Breyers ice cream

List all the modes of transportation you’ve taken.

-Horse & buggy
-Horse & cutter
-Model T, Maxwell, Auburn (cars)
-Tricycle, toy auto-bike, 2 seater bike
-Bus (school), bus (Greyhound)
-El train, N.Y.C. subway, train
-Auto
-Jet plane
-Ferry boat (Alaskan), river boat (nite line on Hudson), outboard motor boat
-Dump truck
-Snowmobile
-Elevator, escalator

List the first thoughts that run through your mind the moment you get up.

-It’s another morning. Thank you God!
-Let’s see what the weather is.
-Paper here yet?
-Where is my list for today’s activities? What am I doing today?
-What’s for breakfast?

List the biggest turning points in your life.

-The ultimatum my mother gave me after I graduated from high school. “Get a job or enroll in a college!”
After checking over the Help Wanted ads, I enrolled in [X College]—August 1937.
-Graduation from [X College]—1941.
-1st teaching job—1943, loved it!
-My 1st marriage—I now embarked on 2-3 careers—housewife, teacher & secretary of our construction business.
I enjoyed # 1 & 2—but soon had to give up #3—I disliked it intensely.
-Loss of [husband 1]—moved back home & worked on a Master’s Degree.
-When I said “Yes” to [husband 2] after only 2 months courtship. Married Dec. 1963.
-Loss of [husband 2]—when I had to go it alone. Never had to stay all alone in my life before. It is scary.

List all the times you’ve gone off the beaten path.

Not too many, but I don’t care to list them.

List how you’ve contributed to the welfare of the planet.

-Teaching 10 yr. olds for 30 years.
-Tried to lead a “good” life by helping others in many ways.
-Collected & recorded many historical facts—preservation for future.

List all the celebrities you’d like to sock in the face.

No room for all.

List all the celebrities you’d like to have sex with.

None—thank you.

List the ways the government lies to you.

Too many to list. Latest scare tactic by Bush Administration re Social Security, etc.

List all the magazines you subscribe to.

-Guide Posts
-Good Old Days
-Reminisce—a gift
-Ladies Home Journal—going to drop

List the movies you’ve seen that were really worth two hours of your life.

-Gone With the Wind
-Mame
-South Pacific
-Oklahoma

List the cultural spots you’ve visited that move you so much you are speechless.

Am usually not speechless.

List the times you said yes when you wish you had said no.

The times I sold off all the farm lands.

List the times you have consciously endangered your life.

Driving Dad’s Auburn back & forth to [X College]. It could really fly.

List those unanswered questions that have been plaguing you since childhood.

-What is heaven like?
-Is there really a hell such as many “olde time” talked about?
-Why do people mistreat animals—esp. kittens & puppies?

There are dozens of blank copies of this book available online starting at a dollar, and they had a couple of spin-offs, like List Your Self for Pregnancy, and More List Your Self. A few of these are written in, and there’s even an ex-library copy for sale!

What to do with this biographical book of lists? On the one hand our journalist seemed to want her privacy. On the other, it is a hokey yet poignant repository of late thoughts on a long good life, and better than many listless 1800s diaries I’ve seen that are mainly concerned with things like the weather. I know one of the women she included under “List all the people who love you for who you really are,” and it will go to her.

Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Books About Bookselling: A Backward Look
Shawn Purcell
A Backward Look: 50 Years of Maine Books and Bookmen, by Francis M. O’Brien. Portland, ME: Anthoensen Press, 1986. My first impression of this book is that it’s only 49 pages long, which is good because the deadline is only a week away. And the author spends half the time on non-book topics. His family history. A rather idyllic childhood in the “Forest City.” Many early jobs, including sitting in a tent on a hill near a bridge and recording all the incoming state license plates for the Maine Publicity Bureau. Almost getting fired as an usher. (“Ma’am, we say please in Portland, Maine.”) Going to sea for a few years. Living in New York City; the Left Bank (where he bought a copy of Ulysses from Sylvia Beach and saw James Joyce); Ireland (to write); New Mexico; etc., and then back to Portland. I began to wonder why this was as much about Portland as it was about books, and why it was so slim (Maine brevity?), and then found the publisher’s note I ignored the first time through. “This book is based on a transcription of the fourth annual lecture in the Anthoensen Press Lecture Series, as presented by Francis M. O’Brien at the Portland Public Library, a co-sponsor of the event. The date was Saturday, May 10, 1986, at 1:30 P.M. The Rines Meeting Room was filled with over a hundred interested people with a diversity of literary interests. Mr. O’Brien himself was the unifying point of interest, so much interest that there were many requests to have the lecture published for posterity. It is a pleasure for the Anthoensen Press to accommodate that wish.” And so they did, with a print run of 500 copies. Mine is borrowed from a library whose commercial binder saw fit to remove the original front wrap. There are only a few real copies online, all priced at $100, and one ABAA member was kind enough to let me use his digital image of the cover. I suggested that this late review of the work may stimulate interest in his signed copy. Once I finished reading it, however, I was so stimulated—because it was half about all the little experiences, kindnesses, and bookish influences that went into the creation of such a bookseller—but another of the copies is not only signed but includes the author’s corrections “so noted on last page.” From the description though it appears it’s hardcover, probably the author’s personal bound copy, probably missing the original front wrap, so I’m up in the air, but will decide before this comes out. I could buy all three copies, keep the one I like, and price the other two at $150, which will look pretty good compared to the ridiculous Anybook phantom copy ridiculously priced at $499.88, but that doesn’t always work out, and besides, I’ve blown my cover. At any rate, Mr. O’Brien must have been gratified to produce such an interesting and collectible Maine book. Excerpts follow. “Books were precious in our neighborhood, and there was a great deal of swapping and borrowing, and we thought nothing of walking a mile or two to get them, no matter what the weather. I attended the Cummings School on Ocean Avenue, which was built in the 1890s. It had a small library, which had been closed up for some years, for what reason, I don't know. Another boy, Leslie Hassell, and I got permission from Ma'am Elwell, our principal, to open it up, dust off the books, and act as librarians. Leslie was severely handicapped and on crutches, so I did most of the physical work. (I might add that Leslie became an outstanding horologist and in World War II was commissioned a navy commander and was in charge of some very important navy clockwork.)” “We, and I mean a number of girls and boys, developed a great thirst for reading, and somehow or other, we managed to find most of the books that the bibliographer, Jacob Blank, forty years later, listed in his excellent checklist of American juvenile classics called From Peter Parley to Penrod, except that we didn't know they were classics, just good reading. They were the books by the prolific Maine writer, Jacob Abbott; Hawthorne's A Wonder Book; Goulding's The Young Marooners, laid in Georgia; the books by Oliver Optic; Horatio Alger; Harry Castleman; Cudjo's Cave by J. T. Trowbridge, who later attracted other writers to summer at Kennebunkport; Norway, Maine's Charles Asbury Stephens, who wrote wonderful stories about life on the old farm; glorious Mark Twain; Dan Beard, one of the founders of the Boy Scout movement; Kirk Monroe; Howard Pyle; Kate Douglas Wiggin; W. O. Stoddard; Ernest Seton Thompson; Frank Baum; Henry Shute; Jack London; Owen Johnson; Lewis Carroll; Booth Tarkington; Grimm's fairy tales; Arthur Rackham; Robert Louis Stevenson; Lang’s color fairy tale books; and so forth and so on. We boys even read girls' books, like the ‘Flaxie Frizzle’ stories that were written by Rebecca Clark, another Maine writer who lived here in Portland at one time, in Park Place, just below Danforth Street.” “For the first time I had a chance to explore Portland, and I ranged it from Cleaves Monument at the top of Munjoy Hill to the streets and alleys between, all the way out to Libbytown and beyond. I discovered the public library and its children’s room, then under the charge of Miss Linda Hackett. We became friends, and remained so for the rest of our lives. The First World War was in progress, we had just entered it the previous year, and even at ten years old, I suppose that I was caught up in the mutual intoxication of war fever, and it was to take me a long time in the future before I began to wonder why the decent people of the world allowed their leaders to work out their designs for murder, a question that is still not answered. “We boys dug trenches in my aunt's back garden next to the mews behind the Park Street row houses and played with homemade arms. At that time, there was a charming little park, with benches and a fountain that was used in warm weather for the benefit of the owners of the houses on Park Street. Three of the houses, then called the Baltimore Flats, were occupied by men whose libraries I bought many years in the future. There were Isaac Watson Dyer, a bibliographer of Carlyle, whose great Carlyle collection is at Bowdoin College; Alfred Brinkler, noted organist and teacher; and Thomas Eddington Calvert, a former editor, and to me my ideal of what a man of letters should look like.” “Huston’s was a treasure house. He was a steady buyer of old collections, and some very important books went through his hands. It was a grey, battered, dusty establishment, with unpainted floors. The general categories were on the first floor, and above were two rooms filled with Americana. In the basement, which was off-limits, were piles of remainders of various Maine books (many printed on Exchange Street itself) which A. J. had bought cheaply when the sales had slowed down. Brown Thurston Company, about opposite where the Anthoensen Press is now, the leading printers of the time, had published many Maine town histories and genealogies as well as Williamson’s bibliography of Maine. “I became a customer of Huston’s in a very small way. He would fill his window with five- and ten-cent books, and I used to buy them consistently. A. J. commented on this once, and predicted that some day I would be buying books for a dollar or more.” “At last, there was a break. Under the new Roosevelt administration, there was organized what was called the Civil Works Administration, the predecessor of the WPA, a make-work program. An advertisement appeared calling for ten people to catalogue books, manuscripts, and other items at the Boston Public Library, that had been donated to them over a period of fifty years, but they had never had the funds to take care of. Many applied and I was one of the lucky ones. We were ensconced in the Treasure Room, the rare book division of one of the great libraries of the world, with access to a superb reference collection. Miss Swift, the director, and Zoltan Haraszty, a droll and eccentric Hungarian scholar, showed great patience with us. For me, it was really the first important learning experience that I had with books as tools. “Our group consisted of nine men and one woman. Most of us were typically angry young people of the times, disgusted with the system, rather leftish in our views. Merle Colby, who had written two best sellers and taken his family to Europe, had come home broke. He and Oliver LeFarge had been the literary white hopes of the Harvard Class of 1926. Merle had managed the old Alfred Bartlett Bookshop in Boston out of college and always wished to return to the book business. He later became administrator of the Federal Writers Project for New England; still later he went with Ernest Gruening when he became governor of Hawaii, and then later of Alaska. Colby edited the Federal Writers' guidebooks for both emerging states. He wrote another novel dealing with Washington intrigue called The Big Street, but died in the 1960s. “Mike Aronsberg was an excellent photographer and later fought in the Spanish Civil War. He had had a bookshop at one time. Charles Flato, not much more than three feet in height, with a hunchback and crippled legs, was a colorful man with a beard, who wore a broad-brimmed black fedora and a black cloak and got around with the aid of a walking stick, with which he would whack people who got in his way. He had great wit, had written for the Hound and Horn, a leading quarterly of the time, and was an authority on Brady photographs. Frank Leveroni had managed Goodspeed's Park Street Bookshop. “John Cheever had had one or two things published up to then, but was destined to become the finest short-story writer of our generation. I corresponded with John a few times over the years, and wrote him a letter just before he died a couple of years ago, and got back a sad reply, one line, ‘Francis—carry on.’ He died about a week later. “We all got along well, and a constant topic was the joy of being able to open an old bookshop as the way to an independent life.” “The very first day I opened a man came up from the waterfront and said there was a barrel of books in an old building that he would deliver for a dollar. A dollar was a magic figure in those days. He brought them along, and I looked them over and found three or four books of interest, but one intrigued me because it had been printed in Portsmouth in 1802. The title was Julia, or The Illuminated Baron, by ‘A Lady of Massachusetts.’ This is one of the rarest books in American literature, and was in wonderful condition in the original leather binding, but of course a neophyte like myself would not have known of it. It was one of the first Gothic novels published in this country and the author was really a lady of Maine, Sally Barrell Keating Wood, our first novelist, who later wrote other books in the same vein. I'm glad to say that Dorothy Healy has a copy of it in the Maine Women Writers Collection at Westbrook College. “One of my first callers was Garland Patch who worked at the navy yard, but was also the custodian of the Thomas Bailey Aldrich House and Museum nearby, and a budding antiquarian. He said he was interested in early Portsmouth printing and I sold him the book for thirty-five cents. That was the standard price for old fiction in those days and I hadn't learned to differentiate. The book would bring about a thousand dollars today.” “The depression was still on, and a lot of people were moving elsewhere. One man from a wealthy local family who lived in one of the finest houses on the Cape shore called me one day to look at his books. They filled a fine library room, mostly fiction and more or less current things. And when I asked him if he wanted to put a price on them, he said: ‘Look, I’m going to fulfill the dream of a lifetime. I’m selling the house, my wife and daughter are going to have an apartment in New York, and I’m going to paint and live on one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, and I’m going to restrict myself to a very limited budget. I’ve got most of the fare down there, but I’m lacking’—and here he named a relatively small amount. I’m ashamed to say how little it was—‘If you want to give me that, you can have these books, and those on the third floor.’ Well, I don’t know whether this is reprehensible or not, but I’d never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The books on the third floor turned out to be some wonderful art books that he had bought as an art student in Paris before the First World War. I often wondered if he had ever fulfilled his dream. Fairly recently, a relative told me that he stayed on the island only a few months and then joined his family in New York, dying a few years later. “The shop promised to be very successful. I got serious about bibliographies, and started buying and reading them. I acquired my original copy of Williamson’s Bibliography of Maine, published in 1896, which lists and describes over eleven thousand books of Maine interest, published up to that date. I got my copy from A. J. Huston who had a small remainder, for the price of seven dollars. This work is indispensable to a bookseller, or a librarian, and is regarded as the finest state bibliography in the country. Many states do not have one, including, surprisingly, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Vermont has a pretty good one, Rhode Island an attempt at one. People desiring a copy of Williamson in recent years, have paid as much as two hundred fifty dollars for one, but the state library, with a special grant, has recently had the work reprinted in excellent style on good paper, in a limited edition of two hundred fifty copies, at sixty-two dollars postpaid, no discounts to anybody. This is a real bargain. About half the copies are sold, and I would rather invest in this book than any stock on the New York Stock Exchange, for they will rise in value when the edition is gone.” “Another spring rolled around and in April of 1940 I opened up once more at 668 Congress Street, at Longfellow Square, which was Erskine Caldwell's old place, the Longfellow Bookshop of the late twenties. There were a lot of changes in Portland. With the coming of World War II, two great shipyards were built in South Portland, where they were to build hundreds of ships; they employed thirty thousand workers from all over, who were making good wages and had some extra money to spend, on books among other things. “There were dislocations in many other ways. Some of the big old houses of Portland were being converted into war housing, and several times a week I would show up at the shop to unload a few hundred books. “The largest library I ever bought was at the Deering Street house of Dr. William Fenn, the old pastor of the High Street Congregational Church, who had died in 1914. The house had been closed up since, but was maintained by heirs who lived in Delaware, connected with DuPont. There were ten thousand books there, bound periodicals and pamphlets, including what I now realize was a remarkable collection of books dealing with the Darwinian controversy, which had changed the face of revealed religion forever. It should have been kept as a collection but I was too distracted at the time to do so. I think it was probably the most scholarly collection of books I ever had. “Some of the finest books in town began to appear during these years. Hubbard Winslow Bryant, of Boston, had come to Portland to open an antiquarian bookshop and curio business about 1860, but was taken on by John Bundy Brown (then our richest citizen) as a confidential clerk, and remained so for the next thirty years. Sometime in the 1860s, a series of articles appeared in the old Portland Press, entitled ‘The Private Libraries of Portland,’ under the initial ‘B,’ which I have good reason to believe was Bryant. With some self-interest among his opening paragraphs, he stated, ‘It is to be hoped that in the course of time we shall be blessed with all the concomitance of modern civilization, including the old book business and the horse railroad.’ He was not to have his own bookshop until around the turn of the century, when among his occasional visitors was Winslow Homer, who may possibly have been related. Hubbard Winslow was the name of a popular clergyman in Boston, and it was common to name children after clergymen, but there may have been a connection. A. J. Huston said that Bryant pestered—he used the word ‘pestered’—Homer into designing a bookplate, the only one known to have been done by him. I happen to own one of Bryant's reference books with the bookplate, an exceedingly rare article, and I had another copy which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the articles, ‘B’ deals with some of the outstanding book collections of the town, listing a great many titles. James Olcott Brown, son of J. B. Brown, had a gentleman's library, with some first editions of the New England writers. Bishop William Stevens Perry had two thousand volumes and five thousand pamphlets, including a great many items relating to the early history of the Episcopal Church in America, as well as a collection of the letters of the Reverend Jacob Bailey, the frontier missionary and Tory of Pownalborough. The Perry collection was a fairly large collection with some very early quartos and folios, including the great Bayle's Dictionary, the English edition of 1724 in five volumes; and Leigh Hunt's copy of Sir Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, one of the great classics of English literature. It is hard to imagine how that ever got to Portland, yet we recall the phrase about ‘the curious mobility of books.’ Dana's books were later sold at auction. “John Neal, an outstanding Portland literary figure, who was called ‘that wild fellow’ by Hawthorne, had about three thousand volumes, later mostly destroyed in the Great Fire, although some important works presented to him have come down through descendants who are still living here. “Oliver Gerrish’s books were strong on Swedenborgianism and Freemasonry, but he had some good old books, including much natural history. He also had a number of books bound in Russian leather by the excellent Portland bookbinder, George Coleman, of the 1830s. “William Willis, the historian of Portland, had formed a library ‘to delight the historian, the antiquarian, and the general student.’ In 1834, he had printed a catalogue of his library consisting of almost fifty pages. He had since acquired many additions, and some of the books are listed. He owned the first six volumes of the Falmouth Gazette, the first newspaper in Maine, beginning in 1795. “The first separately printed item in Maine is probably a copy of the ‘Lumber Act,’ which was printed in an early issue of the Gazette and advertised as available at their office. It is likely that it was a broadside, but no copy is known. “For Mainers, a copy of this incunabulum turning up would be almost as thrilling as finding a copy of the Cambridge 1639 ‘Freeman’s Oath,’ the first item to be printed in North America, but of which there is no known copy. A fraudulent copy of this has recently been exposed. “Willis also had many items relating to Maine history as well as to general history and literature, about three thousand volumes in all, with a number of early manuscripts. He also had a book that was taken from Father Râle, the French missionary to the Indians, when he was killed by the English at Norridgewock. I believe most of Willis’s books are now here in the Portland Public Library. “Philip Henry Brown, another son of J. B. Brown, had three thousand volumes, which contained the rarest and most valuable items of all, very strong in fine bindings and illustrated books, and early books of travel, foreign and American. He also owned a copy of Gillray’s caricatures in elephant folio, with the extra volume of suppressed plates (containing scatological humor); also an elephant folio volume of early states of Hogarth’s engravings, which is now in my possession; besides an unusual collection of facetiae (an old-fashioned bookseller’s term for erotica). Brown’s books descended to his daughter, Mrs. Frank True, and were sold at auction in the 1950s, and I was fortunate in purchasing some of them.” “Out of some of the foregoing collections, and many others, such as the great library at the Deering Mansion (the site of what is now the University of Southern Maine); I acquired over the years many fine books for my stock. During this period, I began to send out lists of books to libraries and individuals. In 1945 I had my first printed catalogue. About that time, our two children were born. The books were piling up, both in my shop basement and in my High Street home. In 1949 we acquired an old farm on the Saco River in Hiram. We did a lot of fixing up, and have been using it for storage ever since. “In 1952 my wife and I decided to give up the Congress Street shop and do business from home, where we have since catered to old and new customers and have done a fairly active appraisal business of books and old manuscript material. “I have occupied but a small niche in our book world. What of the others? Locally we had several new bookshops until recently. Now the business is dominated by a single chain, relentlessly efficient and successful, but lacking the warmth that one enjoyed with Charles Campbell, Edith Riley, Janet Palmer, and Leo Boyle, and with the doyens of the wholesale trade, Dan and Ruth McDonough. “The antiquarian trade has risen in twenty years from single numbers to a fraternity of eighty members today, the Maine Antiquarian Booksellers Association. “The circle of book collectors is sizable, and some have made their own contributions to literature and historical research. So far as the devoted quest of books is concerned, I must mention several who should be honored: James B. Vickery, historian of Bangor and Unity, indefatigable book-hunter; William B. Jordan, historian of Cape Elizabeth and mordant critic of Portland’s past; Dorothy Healey, co-founder of Westbrook College’s Maine Women Writers Collection; lastly, a lay scholar who, through stress and storm, has succeeded in building probably the finest collection of works of history in Maine, Bradford Hale. Then there is that mysterious angel of local bookshops, the Bear. “Before I conclude, I must pay tribute to one of the glories of Portland: the Anthoensen Press, which unfortunately is more renowned in the world of bookmen and scholars than it is in its own hometown. That was the fate of Thomas Bird Mosher, who also occupied the present home of the Press, at 45 Exchange Street. I wonder if that great craftsman, Fred Anthoensen, had ever read Lamb’s advice to a printer: ‘A little flowery border, neat not gaudy,’ or Ruskin’s rejoinder that admiration of ‘neat but not gaudy’ is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail green. I don’t think the Anthoensen Press will ever paint its tail green. “Well, I have rambled on long enough, and I thank you for your company and your patience for what undoubtedly is a dull tale. “I don’t know whether you want to take any more time, but if anybody wants to ask questions, I’m ready. But keep in mind the rules of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vatican Library, probably the first public library in the world: that any reader who asks more than three senseless questions of the attendant is to be removed.” Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com. IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Book Repair: Revelations, Decisions, and Disclosures

Ellen Firsching Brown

I recently did something I never thought I would do: I tore a book to shreds. When my children were little, they routinely received harsh punishments for this sort of behavior. What brought me to commit such an act of destruction? It was not a fit of rage or any form of mental breakdown. It was an assignment for a class in book repair.

Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to study book making and repair. Along with my fellow attendees, I shuddered at the thought of ruining a perfectly good book. I nervously sliced into the binding and pulled off the covers. I quickly became engrossed with the task and amazed at how difficult it was to break apart a well made book. Warming to the job, I ripped off headbands, scraped spine linings, peeled the endpapers from the boards, and even cut off the corners of the boards. I finished by removing a few pages from the text block and either crumpling them or tearing them into pieces. The next assignment was the really fun part—putting the books back together.

I signed up for these classes as a bit of a lark, thinking that it would be interesting to learn how books are made and how all the parts come together. I came away with much more. I did not fully appreciate how books are made until I sat down and took a book apart, piece by piece, and put it back together with a trained professional labeling every part and explaining its purpose.

After going through this process, you “read” books in a new way. Only by understanding book construction can you accurately assess a book’s condition. You will know how to spot repairs. You will be able to assess whether a book that looks perfectly fine at first glance has been previously repaired. You will be able to identify books that look hopeless but which are easily fixable.

These courses also broadened my acceptance of book repairs. In the past, if faced with a damaged book, I would tie it up with a ribbon or put it in a protective box. I avoided buying damaged books, even when they presented a great bargain, and rarely recommended that clients spend money on book repairs. My attitude has changed. Whereas I once thought that damaged books were best left alone, I now see that bringing disabled books back into a usable form can be a positive thing.

My own experience bore this out almost immediately. The week after I completed my first class in rebinding, a client asked me to fix a favorite old book of his that was falling apart. I explained that the process would alter the charming aged appearance of his book. I was surprised that he wanted me to proceed. I nervously performed the repair, almost certain that he would be disappointed by the result. To my great surprise, he was thrilled with the transformation and was practically in tears with appreciation that I had brought the book back into usable form. I am not sure why I found this so remarkable. Books are, after all, meant to be read.

While I freely admit to a new found respect for the wonders of book repair, I still find myself a bit squeamish about one issue: to what extent dealers should disclose repairs to their customers. I have encountered several dealers who tout their ability to refurbish tattered old books and make a tidy profit on resale. I’ve often got the distinct impression some of these dealers were not advising purchasers about the repairs.

So, what responsibility do dealers have to disclose book repairs to potential clients? Unfortunately, there is no generally applicable booksellers’ code to say what is required. While there are various guidelines that set operating standards for dealers, few offer guidance on this issue.

Of primary interest to readers of the IOBA Standard would be how IOBA addresses repair disclosure. The IOBA Code of Ethics requires that its members take “responsibility for furthering mutual trust and respect between booksellers and customers by conducting their businesses with fairness and integrity.” Members must thoroughly inspect their books and post accurate descriptions. IOBA also requires its dealers to describe “defects, blemishes, or other characteristics which reduce a book's quality” and prohibits its dealers from “mislead[ing]” customers. While this language supports the idea of dealers disclosing repairs in their listings, it is not explicitly required. The issue seems to come down to whether a well-performed repair reduces a book’s quality. I suspect some dealers would say that, by definition, repairs automatically diminish value. Others certainly would disagree.

Also of interest to online booksellers may be the listing policies of services such as AbeBooks and Alibris. Neither appears to address the issue head-on. According to the AbeBooks Bookseller Policy, under Performance Standards and Code of Conduct, Section 11(d), dealers may not list “inaccurate or incorrect book information or descriptions…resulting in the misrepresentation of inventory.” There does not seem to be any specific obligation to disclose book repair history in seller listings. Similarly, I found no specific requirement by Alibris that dealers must disclose book repairs in their listings. As far as damaged books go, the Alibris Listing Regulations require only that sellers do not list “[b]ooks with missing pages” or books that are “[m]oldy, smelly, badly stained or unclean…unless specifically described as such.”

One entity that addresses the issue directly is the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. Like IOBA, ABAA requires its members to be responsible for the accurate description of material offered for sale. However, the ABAA goes a step further and specifies that “[a]ll significant defects, restorations, and sophistications should be clearly noted and made known to those to whom the material is offered or sold.” While this statement requires disclosures in certain situations, even here there is some degree of ambiguity. What does the term “significant” mean? What are “sophistications?” Does an ABAA dealer have to disclose erasures or re-glued plates?

Dealers selling repaired books would be well-advised to think through the applicable standards carefully as they prepare their listings. In addition, when buying books, it makes sense to ask about repair histories. Without any uniform standard on this issue, it can only be assumed that dealers follow a variety of approaches to disclosure.

I encourage all dealers to find the time to study book making and repair. I am not suggesting that all dealers need to become master book-binders. That is a skill best left to book artisans. A class or two is all you will need to find new insight and a skill set that will benefit both you and your customers.

Ellen Firsching Brown operates Liberty Hall Books out of Richmond, VA and can be contacted at http://www.libertyhallbooks.com/.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

The Pros and Cons of Amazon.com for Buyers and Sellers

Chris Volk

This is the third in a series of articles taking a brief look at the pros and cons of the various multi-dealer book-listing databases. The first and second in the series looked at AbeBooks.com and Alibris.com and can be found in the two previous issues of the IOBA Standard. This article takes a look at Amazon.com, the largest and in many ways the most important internet bookselling site. Amazon’s commitment to “branding” and to creating a significant presence on the net resulted in years of losses, but it also created a name that has become a household word. For most people, and not just in the United States, Amazon and bookselling on line are synonymous.

When looking for a relatively recent book—that is, titles published after the advent of ISBNs (International Standard Book Number), roughly 1970—Amazon.com offers more copies from more booksellers, both professional and amateur, than any other site in the United States. AbeBooks.com used to dominate in pre-1970 books, at least in terms of quantity, but this is beginning to change, and Amazon’s selection is expanding rapidly in this area also. In the past month, I have found several books where the only copy being offered on the internet, as far as I could determine, was on Amazon.com. It offers a marketplace unequaled in its reach on the internet.

FOR BUYERS: PROS

More books offered, used and new, than can be found anywhere else, with most of the new books being sold at some sort of a discount, often a significant discount.
Free shipping on new books at a low order threshold (just $25), or discounted expedited shipping through Amazon Prime.
Increasingly broad selection of out-of-print books, including those which were not issued with ISBNs or were issued before the use of these numbers.
There are many sellers who list books on Amazon and nowhere else. These range from sellers with thousands of books, to those who just have a few books to sell from their personal library. Amazon encourages the listing of even just one book by a seller.
Feedback on sellers. While any feedback system can be abused, reading the feedback about a seller, especially one with a significant amount of negative comments, can give a buyer some valuable information. Unlike eBay.com, the majority do not post feedback on Amazon.com; feedback comments probably represent somewhere between 25% to fewer than 10% of all customers.
Ability to place a pre-order for a book which has no copies listed. The buyer can specify the maximum price and the lowest acceptable condition, and if a book meeting these requirements is listed, the order is automatically placed. For a scarce book, where condition does not matter, or matters little, this can be useful.
Amazon’s A-Z guarantee. While not quite as strong a level of protection as it was in the past, this does give buyers a way of resolving problems if contacting the seller does not work. Because the Amazon.com marketplace is so valuable to many sellers, however, they are usually quick to resolve problems. When I received a trade paperback instead of the hardcover I ordered, the seller quickly gave a full refund (note: in this case, the seller had violated Amazon’s rules by listing a book which did not match the “product details,” something that happens frequently, and is sometimes disclosed, sometimes not).
A very easy to use check out system, including “one click” buying if you only want one book, and standard shipping is acceptable.
An enormous amount of other information about the book, including both editorial and reader reviews, a look “inside the book” which shows other books that referenced this specific title, and more. Amazon just added links to forums for discussions about a product or book (and if there are no discussions, links to active related forums) and its own version of Wikipedia, called amapedia.com. Amazon has always been content-driven, but the content is increasing significantly. Many internet buyers check Amazon for information, even when actually buying elsewhere.

FOR BUYERS: CONS

Search results can be a mess—there is just no other word to describe it! If a title has a paperback copy in print (or relatively recent), sometimes this is the only option which will show up when doing a simple author/title search. In order to find hardcover copies, you have to click on the paperback and then go to “all editions” etc. This is true even when the “recent” edition is no longer available, and there are copies listed under the other editions. The situation is even worse for older books. Amazon.com bought several databases of pre-ISBN books, but the information in them is often incomplete (“binding unknown”) or incorrect (“4 pages”). In addition, Amazon.com allows sellers to create “product details” pages, so sometimes a book which only had a few different editions might have 15 or 20 variations shown on Amazon, with the number of books “available” for each variant ranging from none to 50 or more. In order to really know what is available, you need to click all of these options.

Here’s a recent example. I searched for a popular book issued in hardcover and book club in 1984, as a mass market paperback in 1985, and as a trade paperback in at least 1997 and just recently in 2007. The search was run using the author’s last name, and a short form of the title. Fourteen different results come back with the 2007 trade paperback first (which lists 50 used and new copies). The second result is the 1997 trade paperback (this used to be the “top result” until the new edition came out) with 26 used and new. These are followed by mass market paperback with 34 copies, hardcover with 5, paperback with 4, hardcover with 1, etc. and finally gets down to several listings for hardcovers and paperbacks with no copies. In looking at this screen, it appears that there are only 6 hardcover copies available, with the lowest priced at $7.50.

If you click on the first title, you will see only the product information related to that particular edition. However, if you click on the second title for the 1997 trade paperback, which indicates that there are 26 used and new starting at $17.45, you will find the link to “other editions,” and HERE you will see a link to “hardcovers—106 used and new from .01.” So whether you are looking for a very inexpensive copy or you want a choice of “collectible” copies, this is where the majority of copies listed on Amazon.com will be found. But this is not all. Click on the title for the mass market paperback (34 copies used and new from .65) and you will see a link to 16 more hardcovers starting at $1.76. If you know the ISBN and use that as your search criteria (for the hardcover, for example) you will only see the 106 which we found linked to the 1997 paperback.

The advanced search only has very limited options for narrowing down searches. If you are looking for a collectible copy, for example, it is important to remember that not all copies listed under that tab are “collectible” and some listed simply as “used” might be collectible. Amazon does not permit a book to be categorized as “collectible” unless the price is more than the list price (with a minimum of $10), nor can an “ex-library” copy be described as collectible, no matter how desirable the title might be.
Books are listed which the seller does not have in his or her possession. This is especially true for uncommon books where it might appear that there are 4 or 5 copies available, all at rather high prices, but in reality the seller will try to find a copy after an order is received. Amazon.com is the first site where this happened, however it is no longer the only site, nor the worst.
Often there is no or little detail about the condition of the book. The books are assigned a grade, ranging from “used-acceptable” to good, very good and as new, but the actual description often consists of nothing more than meaningless phrases like “satisfaction guaranteed,” “we ship fast,” or a generic “book may have” highlighting, library markings, tears, etc.
While it is possible to click on a seller’s name and find other books offered by that seller on their “storefront,” the ability to search those books is very limited.
Shipping fees are not combined. If you order multiple books from the same seller, a full separate shipping fee is charged for each book.
Prices can be higher than on other sites. Some sellers adjust for the higher selling costs on Amazon.com; other sellers use computer driven automated pricing. Automated pricing can sometimes work in a buyer’s favor as the prices are driven to one cent, but if the low priced copies are sold, then the price can also automatically jump up—sometimes way up! One feedback statement I read recently on the site was from a buyer who wanted 3 copies of a title. He was able to place an order for 2 copies at approximately $6 including shipping, but when he returned to order a third copy, the lowest priced (from the same seller) had increased to $24.
No unified international site, or combined international search. Each country site is separate. Only sellers with a US presence are allowed to list on Amazon.com, only sellers with a UK presence can list on Amazon.co.uk, etc.
Not all sellers will ship internationally or by expedited mail.

FOR SELLERS: PROS

MORE BUYERS than any other bookselling site. What else matters more?
The ability to determine if expedited or international shipping is an option, so large, heavy books which are expensive to ship can be excluded.
Control over frequency of payments. Funds are automatically transferred every two weeks, but sellers have the option of doing so as frequently as once a day.
In addition to Amazon’s own traffic, uncommon books on Amazon.com get very good search engine exposure. I was searching for some titles that did not appear on the meta-search engines like BookFinder.com or AddALL.com, but a Google search brought up the copy listed for sale on Amazon.
Information that can be useful in determining books for which there is substantial demand, such as the sales ranking.

FOR SELLERS: CONS

The search problems described above might make your books hard to find. If you list your books individually, you can sometimes improve their visibility.
The common use of automatic pricing, and the fact that Amazon always displays books “lowest price first,” often means that even if you list a copy at the “best price,” within hours or days your price may be undercut.
Descriptions are limited to 1000 characters. You cannot upload a photo of your actual copy (except in limited circumstances such as in a seller-created product detail page), and the stock photos do not always match the copy you are selling.
In doing a bulk upload, many books will be rejected for various reasons, such as the ISBN, the price being too low for a collectible, etc. Amazon’s matching on pre-ISBN books (a feature they expanded after closing zShops for booksellers) is getting better, but still misses many books.
If you wish to give a partial refund (for example, when a customer purchased more than one book and paid more than necessary for shipping), it counts against booksellers in the “performance standards.”
Frequent and seemingly arbitrary changes by Amazon. For example, the email notification of a sale no longer contains the buyer’s information. While Amazon created an “improved” alternate, in a downloadable file, this only works for PC users, not on Macs.
Amazon does not permit the listing of “advance review copies” or “teacher’s editions” no matter how long ago they were issued, nor how collectible they might be.
Shipping fees are set at a uniform rate, and it is a violation of Amazon’s policies to request additional shipping from the customer. Although Amazon.com changed its language and now states that the entire shipping fee is remitted to the seller, the new $1.35 “final value fee” on all books is the “shipping skim” in new clothes.

Chris Volk operates Bookfever along with Shep Iiams out of the Sierra foothills of Amador County, CA and can be contacted at http://www.bookfever.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Joe Orlando of Fenwick Street Used Books and Music

One chapter ends and another begins…

While I am sure there are quite a few professors who left academe to open bookstores, I am not sure how many have spent their careers shouting, “5, 6, 7, 8…!!” For, you see, I have spent much of my life since age 22 teaching and choreographing jazz dance. It is not something that I aspired to as a child growing up in Long Island, New York. Rather, it was something that happened to me along the way to a career in music or theatre, both of which I was interested and involved in since childhood.

Because I was not athletic (far from it, since the coach always had to place me on one or the other dismayed team), dance did not seem to be the life I would wind up pursuing. But, because the community college I attended after graduating high school (and after being transplanted to Miami, Florida, at the thirteen-year-old peak of adolescent angst) had a P.E. requirement, and dance was an option, I began dancing. Figuring that I would need dance for theater, I tried a class and was hooked. Now, some 35 years later, and after a B.F.A. in dance and a Master's in philosophy and art, I have taught, choreographed and performed in so many places. From New York's Alvin Ailey school to heading the dance program at Interlochen Arts Academy; from Alaska (where a certain female singer was a student of mine that I brought to the lower 48) to teaching in Israel, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Hawaii (even a master class at Barack Obama’s Alma Mater, Punahou School); to across the USA. Besides my role as teacher I also recruited talented students from schools in a 20 to 38 state tour each year (really built up those frequent flyer miles!).

My final full time professorship was at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where after ten years I was denied tenure. A chapter closed. My wonderful wife, Joanna—also from New York, but teaching outside of Dallas—and I met through the personals there. My experience at SMU was a sign to return to the east coast, and Joanna accepted a position teaching at St. Mary’s College in Southern Maryland. And there is where the next chapter opened.

A whole county with no used bookstore? How strange! Maybe this was the time to try my hand at creating my dream in the county seat, Leonardtown. (Actually, I lie: there is one other used bookstore in this area. Before I opened, Joanna and I went to innocently check out the competition and quickly discovered that while the front room had an odd collection of mass market paperbacks, the real "meat" of the operation was in the back room through a curtain marked "you must be 21 to enter.")

I can hear my father joking about my mother “always having her nose in a book.” Maybe that is where I inherited my love for literature; I don’t know. I do remember reading the book that launched my full immersion in a life of reading: Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. I must have read it shortly after it was published. While I enjoyed reading from an early age, that book really affected me because of its exploration of morals and customs, and of how we would act if brought up in a totally different world. This begins to explain why I studied philosophy.

Folks who visit my shop describe it in many ways. More than once I have heard that it reminds them of Shakespeare & Company in Paris. Others just love the many quotations I have posted around the shop. All seem to love the many categories of books. I am a generalist, although I do have some nice rare and signed books, including a section of vintage children’s books. The centerpiece of my shop is the old bar. My shop was a real bar for 30 years—it seems quite a rowdy one—and the actual bar was brought down by steamship from Baltimore over 70 years ago. Quite the conversation piece, and some old timers immediately place themselves where their favorite stool was. And to quote a recent article about the shop, “where the products are more likely to be inscribed than imbibed.” There is even a drive-through in the alley, where one could purchase alcoholic beverages through a window, which is still there and something I still have not figured out what to do with. (An audio book for the road, anyone?).

Since I have visited at least 100 used bookstores across the US (and many in Europe) perhaps I have in mind what I like to call the archetypal bookstore. I know it is a place that I have created from all I have experienced before. I take pride in meeting and exceeding my customers' reading needs and recommending authors that might interest them. Even though it is time consuming I do order books that I do not have in the shop, as I feel this is a necessary service. My shop has become a focal point of the reading and music community (I am also a musician and sell vinyl records and cds in my shop, featuring local talent as well as vintage jazz, blues and rock). There are also the local poets that meet once a month for an open mic. I enjoy helping my customers and I know they appreciate what I provide. They show it in so many ways.

I started listing online almost from the opening of my shop. Abe was the first. I quickly learned of Alibris and others, and currently list on those as well as IOBAbooks, Amazon, Choose/ZVAB and my own site. The credo to which I have adhered is that I will not list books that are readily available. If there are more than 25 copies of it and the prices start low, I will skip it. My minimum price to list online now is $20. Like many others, Amazon seems to sell more books than any other site. I sell fairly esoteric titles there. Also, I must say, sales are good there because of name recognition. I know from experience that even college professors look to Amazon first.

I started a list serv for owners of brick and mortar shops four years ago, because I could not find a consortium online. To date, I have over 250 members from all over and I am very proud of the group's intelligence, kindness and success. It has been quite a wonderful resource for those of us with brick and mortar as well as online book sales. http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/oldbookstore.

In addition to my full-time work with my shop and online sales, I am a wedding officiant. I create custom wedding ceremonies for couples wanting something unique and different. www.creativeweddings-somd.com.

I have spent the last year on the membership committee of IOBA and I have found it very rewarding. I am honored to be part of this organization, which is upholding the highest standards of bookselling online. I hope that through the ongoing dialogue and profiles of online sellers, we can all benefit from this excellent organization.

Joe Orlando operates Fenwick Street Used Books and Music in Leonardtown, MD and can be contacted at http://www.fenwickbooks.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Bob Schilling of Schillingslist

I'm Bob Schilling, a 46 year old bibliophile living in Gresham, Oregon; a native of the Northwest, born and raised in Seattle, WA; and a resident of Oregon since 1999. My wife of 22 years, Arlyee (pronounced like "Charlie" without the "Ch") and I started Schillingslist Select Used Books in the fall of 2004. It's a supplemental income for us, one that is ever growing, but more importantly, it's a supplemental passion. Like many of you, I love to traffic in books, love to browse them, love to read them, love to be around them, love to handle them, love to find them and love selling them.

My Pilgrimage into Books

My love of books coincides with a religious conversion that happened to me shortly before my 21^st birthday. I'd been a good student through high school, but got lost for a couple of years, dropped out of college, worked a few different jobs and lived for the night life and the weekends. Through the influence chiefly of my father, who was converted later in life, I became a Christian at age 20 and shortly thereafter renewed my education at a three year Bible College. I met my wife during my last year there. We were married a few months after my graduation, and then proceeded to pursue the course of our lives and the raising, eventually, of four children.

I became a book guy in Bible College to the point that when my wife was pregnant with our first son, I seriously pleaded my case to name him, "Book." I thought it could be a cool name, unique, maybe not too weird. My Booker T. Washington arguments notwithstanding, the good sense of my wife prevailed, and our son Patrick was given a less peculiar name; an event that to this day, makes him forever grateful to his mother! But, to back up again, I had the good fortune of an older Bible teacher who took a liking toward me. In my second year of college, he sponsored me for a trip with a tour group that he was leading to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Greece. I was there introduced to papyri and incunabula; and through him, to the vast world of books.

Thrift stores, garage sales and used book stores became my frequent haunts during this time, and I was bit by the bug, snagged by the hook, or whatever metaphor best describes that captivation that took hold of me for the bound printed word. Theology was the content of my choice, but the pursuit of volumes in this field led to broader and broader landscapes of subject matter, and also to an appreciation for fine bindings, for beauty, for the antiquarian, for the rare, and even for the odd.

To feed my habit I sold books occasionally to used book stores. I developed relationships with a few booksellers, and though never officially a "scout," I was frequent enough in my selling transactions that essentially I was one. Some friendships and relationships remain to this day from my early years of selling to dealers.

My personal library over the years has been a revolving one, which helps me as a bookseller, because I'm not a huge collector. I've gone through seasons of collecting this or that. We collected nearly all the Landmark history books when my children were growing up, along with similar series like "We Were There" and "Signature Books." We've always had a good collection of classic literature, and all my kids have also enjoyed their way through The Little House on the Prairie books, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew (I was a Beverly Cleary and Danny Dunn fan as a boy), The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and all the Harry Potter books. My wife has long been a reader of historical fiction and mysteries. I've gravitated to theology, biography and history; and most lately to books on books. As I grow older I tend to hang on to volumes that have peculiar meaning to me based on content, usefulness, reference value, and worthwhile qualities to pass on to my children. Strange as it sounds, though not uncommon, I wouldn't buy a lot of the books I sell; I'm just not that much of a collector, and I'm kinda' cheap.

I continued to pursue a theological education through three years part-time and then two years full-time in Seminary. In this pursuit of further education, we sold or gave away most of our belongings and towed a 5' x 8' U-Haul trailer behind our station wagon across the country. That small trailer contained all that we owned, and my wife is still glad to remind me that ¾ of it was my collection of books.

We moved to what was a Mecca for Christian books in the United States, Grand Rapids, MI. Numerous Christian publishers and two of the largest used Christian book stores in the country were located there: Kregal's Used Book Store and Baker Book House (with many lesser known shops that I soon discovered). I was in religio-biblio heaven and proceeded to strain and bust our pocketbook with acquisitions that "I just couldn't pass up." In my five years there, I learned a lot about theology and an equal amount about books. It was there that I made acquaintance with Joel Beeke, a local Pastor and book dealer; a bibliophile like few I've ever known. He currently is involved in both publishing and the selling of new and used books; and as part of a Seminary under his leadership, has developed one of the world's largest collections of primary and secondary sources on Puritan theology. www.heritagebooks.org

My Venture into Online Bookselling

It was my father who first mentioned to me in 2003 that his pastor was selling used books online, and maybe it was something that I should look into. It was just the previous year that Stephen Windwalker had released his book, Selling Used Books Online, which I bought and devoured. I culled my personal library and started with a thousand dollars to buy additional inventory. I made many mistakes those first few months, fulfilling that adage that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I did well buying theology, and learned some quick tips to help me with non-fiction, but wasted hundreds of dollars buying "signed" and "first edition" fiction. Fiction is obviously a major collectable field, and many a bookseller’s staple stock, but it wasn't an area I knew well enough to start with.

Around this same time, late 2003, early 2004, I came across www.bookthink.com. Craig Stark became an unknown mentor. The newsletters, the articles, the links, and the forum were to have a huge impact on my bookselling as I started online. I read as much as I could, trying to add to the select areas of bookselling that I knew relatively well. I downloaded ABE's free HomeBase database, and started listing my books. I didn't do my initial upload until January 2, 2005.

I got my feet wet selling first on ABE, and then added Alibris, Amazon, Biblio, ChooseBooks, Half, and an eBay store. I also switched to www.theartofbooks.com for my listing database, as it allowed me to list on multiple sites and manage sales efficiently. I also purchased a scanner for my cell phone and subscribed to www.scoutpal.com, a very helpful service allowing you to retrieve online prices for books while scouting. I realize that many are critical of cell phone/PDA scanners and programs, and I also realize that many have looked to them as get-rich-quick devices, misusing them and frankly giving them a bad name. But the bookseller with a passion for books and an ever-learning commitment will gain definite benefits from such technology. Nobody knows it all, nor can they; and internet pricing information in the field opens many other areas and titles that you otherwise would pass by. A larger benefit, early on, can be the savings in not buying books that are either glutted online or have very little resale value. Earlier this year I employed www.chrislands.com to build my website.

I'm a small player in this big world of online booksellers, with much to learn in a venerable trade. I may never be a full-time bookseller; but I'll always be engaged in it at some level. It's hard not to be who you really are. And for me, with other stewardships, bookselling as a part-time venture is probably the way that I'll best maintain my love for it. As a supplemental avocation for me, it's an activity that I daily look forward to. And that's one of the other gems about this endeavor, isn't it? You can dive in as deep as you want, swim as far as you care to, dabble in the shallow end, forge your way through the deep waters, or change your course midstream.

My Business

www.schillingslist.com

I enjoy nearly every aspect of bookselling. It's something my wife and I can do together. She helps with some listing and shipping, and we enjoy estate sales and a little travel here and there. It's been a pleasure to be the conduit between a number of folks and the books they've been looking for. I enjoy the fraternity of fellow booksellers; a mixed lot, very diverse personalities and specialties, but by and large a very good group of people who have a passion for the benefits of reading and the joy of collecting. It's a knowledgeable group, both booksellers and book buyers, and it has led to many interesting conversations. There's never a lack of things to learn, and the world-wideness of it with the internet is astounding. The hunt, the treasure seeking, the finds, the surprises, and a few frustrations thrown in to make it real-life; all add up to a thrilling adventure for me.

I have made the conscious choice to have fun in the hard work of this business. How cool is that? If FOL sales are becoming a pain, or if estate sales in the city are getting too competitive, then I'll pursue those less and hit other venues more. But, I'll never write off any of the venues. It's an evolving thing. Hit or miss. Same with certain thrift stores. Some I swing by with more regularity than others, for good reasons, but you never know what might show up at any given venue at any given time. Of course, having the books come to you is far better, and some advertising and the frequent distribution of business cards are my means to that end.

I've also made the conscientious commitment to try to run every part of this business with integrity and excellence. I'm very careful in the grading of my inventory, and sell few books that are in less than Very Good condition. Every dust jacket in my inventory is in a new archival Brodart protector. Every book is wrapped in tissue, bubble-wrap and an appropriate box and padding or double-criss-crossed b-flute for safe shipment. Every domestic customer is given their Delivery Confirmation number, and all orders are unconditionally returnable within ten days (or longer if the selling venue so dictates). I don't try to make any money on shipping; I simply try to cover my costs. I gladly provide trade discounts to fellow booksellers. I write a personal note of thanks on all my packing slips.

I specialize in Theology—particularly that branch springing from the Reformation, the Puritans and modern Evangelicalism. As with most areas of bookselling, there are a plethora of books in this niche that are nearly worthless in the second-hand market. I routinely sort through boxes of volumes and endless yards of shelving with 80-90% of the books, and up, not worth my time. But then there's that other 1-20%, and those other exceptional sales; those mother-lodes where 80-90% is on the other end of the spectrum. My best buys, like many other dealers, have been entire libraries. Estates have been the source of some of my most valuable finds. And a few sources are bread and butter for me week in and week out. I've written a couple of articles regarding this specialty that can be found at Bookthink.com; and I authored two issues in their Gold Edition on reselling conservative Evangelical theology that Craig and I aptly entitled, "The God Edition, Part I and Part II."

Outside my specialty I sell mainly non-fiction; but have some very worthwhile Modern Firsts, some Easton, Franklin and other fine press works, and a fair amount of poetry and children's books. My secondary specialty is Americana. American history I find very interesting and selective niches have peculiar interest for me both as a bookseller and a small collector, especially Northwest Americana. And an area that I do actually collect in is the narrow category of Indian Captivity narratives. Judaism, Islam, politics, reference, the arts and sports all play other prominent roles in my inventory.

Another bookselling venture that I've helped revive in the metropolis that I live near (Portland, OR), is an annual book fair. As a member of our local booksellers association (PAUBA: Portland Area Used Booksellers Association) and its book fair committee, we held our first "Rose City Used Book Fair" last May and have tentatively scheduled our second one for a weekend in April, 2008. We're a modest book fair with a wide range of books in subject matter and price. We advertise ourselves as "an unpretentious book fair." We drew antiquarian dealers, some of whom regularly exhibit at the Seattle Used Book Fair each fall, specialty dealers and many other general used booksellers. We were able last year to

keep the costs for the participating dealers to under $100 per space (most spaces were $80 for an 8' x 8'); and charged a $2 admission fee to the general public (or $1 and a can of food for our local food bank). The book fair was a great success, exceeding everybody's expectations. The booksellers all made money, PAUBA more than broke even, and some contagion was started for future, annual book fairs. I would encourage any local bookseller’s associations to consider this as a future project.

That's me, and us. We're glad to be a part of IOBA, and glad to be of any help to fellow booksellers, and fellow book buyers.

Bob and Arlyee Schilling operate Schillingslist out of Gresham, OR and can be contacted at http://www.schillingslist.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

IOBA Standard: Volume 8(4) Addenda

Victor Goldring of Goldring Books

I am Victor Goldring and trade under the simple name of Goldring Books. Based in Eastbourne, East Sussex, United Kingdom. It is operated out of our home and we sell on the internet only, with our website www.goldringbooks.com being established in 2004. I came to bookselling late in life having held a senior accounting position with an American multi-national oil corporation but decided to take early retirement at 50, too much stress and travelling having worn me down. It was certainly time to quit the “rat race” and to concentrate on enjoying life and having more free time to devote to ourselves. I am ably assisted by my wife Christine and not assisted by our cat Oliver, who regards all packaging as toys. I have always had a great love of books and have been a collector most of my life and bookselling was a logical step to take, combining a love of books with an additional income. It was good to make use of the knowledge gained over the years, although the learning curve is always ongoing, and also wonderful to be able to work from home.

Our specialist interests are French Literature, Memoirs and Biographies in translation, French Revolution, Victorian and English Authors before 1960, Juvenilia, Travel, Historical Fiction, Birds, Cats, Animals and the Paranormal / Spiritual. We carry a regular, ever changing stock of Crime Fiction, Murder Mystery, Poetry, Modern Fiction and Non-Fiction, Foreign Authors, Business, Self Help, Religion and much more. Our eclectic stock includes the scarce and unusual with many signed copies. We tend to buy books that seem to be interesting, although we may have no detailed knowledge of the subject and are always prepared to take a chance.

The enjoyment of bookselling is made more so by the appreciation of customers who have taken the trouble to compliment us on our descriptions, packaging and service. It is always pleasing when this happens. Having shipped books to some 45 countries it is also a good aspect of bookselling to be able to communicate with so many people and to answer detailed enquiries, which some may find tedious but which I feel is important, even though this may not result in a sale.

If I may quote selectively from an American customer’s long note to us, I believe this says it all.

“Firstly, I must thank you and compliment you on your excellent packaging, of which you are justly proud, and which is so terribly important, now-a-days....Secondly, I must just comment on your ‘Thank you for supporting a small independent bookseller,’ and I trust you will forgive my prolixity. I have been a bibliophile my entire life (now on the threshold of the twelfth lustrum) and a book collector for slightly over forty years. Small, independent, second-hand booksellers (that is, booksellers of second-hand books, not previously owned booksellers) have been the source of ninety percent of my books....The trade (and I emphasize that it is a trade, rather than a profession, since to my mind trades are invariably far more honest, beneficial, and pleasant than any profession) has always been an honourable one, and has always attracted men (and women) of intelligence and philosophy, with whom it has been (for the most part) a pleasure to associate with. Unfortunately (yes, even on a bright day there are always dark clouds in the distance) the inflated currencies of the last two decades, and the alluring ease with which they could be earned, saw some very disreputable persons call themselves booksellers, and this remains true today.”

I am particularly thrilled by the hunt for books to add to stock, which has taken us to some interesting places. Tracking down good books can be both enjoyable and frustrating, and many calls to sellers result in viewing extremely poor condition volumes, the ubiquitous book clubs and the over expectation of value. Some people believe that because an item is old it is worth a good price and are disappointed to be told that this is not so. A challenge I particularly like is when I view a collection of books and need to make a decision to purchase after going through hundreds of volumes and to be able to use intuitive judgment as to whether they are good to buy and sell at the right price. This does mean reviewing books at quite a speed, but with the experience of looking at many books I find that I am becoming much faster and more adept.

I enjoy the research of bibliographic information on a scarce or unusual work, if not always conclusive, and often spend far too much time trying to value a book that has no comparison and simply end up with a price that I believe to be fair.

Our plans for the future include adding more stock gradually but not to become too large and unmanageable or there would be a danger that the enjoyment factor could be lost. We are quite happy with our level of success and to be a small fish in the ocean of bookselling. We would recommend the honorable trade of bookselling to anyone, provided that they adhere to ethical standards, are committed, have a passion for books, and do not mind hard work.

I found IOBA through the forum of a certain listing site (no free plug for them!) and liked what they stood for and the ethics that they expounded. Ethics are important in any business and particularly so in selling over the internet. I am one of the few UK sellers to have joined but felt it important to belong to such an organization, and I direct customers to the code of ethics there that I subscribe to.

Victor Goldring operates Goldring Books out of Eastbourne, East Sussex in the U.K. and can be contacted at http://www.goldringbooks.com.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Addenda

Happy Hits

The Delaware & Raritan Canal: A Pictorial History by William J. McKelvey, Jr. (York, PA: Canal Press Incorporated, 1975).

Nine copies on one of the search services. Four of these include the following notes.

“With a substitute photo for one on page 27 if you find existing imagine offensive.”

“Includes photo to add if another photo of naked men and boys along the canal is found to be offensive.”

“One photo in book is of nude boys on bridge ready to swim in canal. Publishers provide a tipped-in alternate photo for those who find it offensive, so they can cover the original.”

“Alternative photo has been hinged over photo of nude boys pg 27.”

Whoever had my unlisted copy did not shrink from revealing this fine historical photo, as the unhinged modesty panel is nowhere to be found.

Descriptions of Fine to Very Good Books

-100% SAFE / Same-as-new.
-Absolutely georgous book.
-Perfect unmarked, factory new inner pages.
-New never read perfect.
-OOH, OOH, OOH pick ME!! BRAND SPANKING NEW!!
-Book is in SUPERB condition.
-Book was babied.
-About like new except it's mildewed.
-The cover is bright and shiny. The text is clean, crisp, solid and unmarked.
-100% new & unread & a bargain.
-This is the original new book from the publisher.
-Book in near new condion -- like you bought it at the bookstore.
-Fine. Never used. Perfetly usable.
-This book is in exceptional condition for age.
-The hardcover is near LIKE NEAR.
-Spine has a tear, Else near bright.
-Whistle clean, tight, & bright: Fine.
-The finest copy in the world. Must have belonged to some kid that hated to read and never did.
-A couple of Kool-Aid stains and lite ware otherwise Very Fine++. I can't find the dustjacket.
-Ultra clean.
-N. V.G. to N.F. Email for detail if important.
-Much better than good.

Submitted by Gwen Foss (http://www.gwenfoss.com/about.asp

Blurbettes

Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes by Robert Kanigel (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007) comes with two holes in the dust jacket. More on that later.

From the front inside flap.

“What makes genuine leather genuine? What make real things…real? In an age of virtual reality, veneers, synthetics, plastics, fakes, and knockoffs, it’s hard to know.

“Over the centuries, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake things seem real. As early as the 14th century, fabric was treated with special oils to make it resemble leather. In the 1870s came Leatherette, a new bookbinding material. The 20th century gave us Fabrikoid, Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede. Each claims to transcend leather’s limitations, to do better than nature itself—or at least to convince consumers that it has.

“Perhaps more than any other natural material, leather stands for the authentic and the genuine; GENUINELEATHER, like a single German word, is how we think of it. Its animal roots etched in its pores and in the swirls of its grain, leather serves as cultural shorthand for the virtues of the real over the synthetic, the original over the copy, the luxurious over the shoddy and second-rate.

“From formica, vinyl siding, and particle board to cubic zirconium, knockoff designer bags, and genetically altered foods, inspired fakes of every description fly the polyester pennant of a brave new man-made world. Each represents an often passionate journey of scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial innovation. Faux Real explores the borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.”

From the rear inside flap.

“Robert Kanigel is the author of the critically acclaimed The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He also wrote Apprentice to Genius and The One Best Way, a biography of efficiency expert Frederick Winslow Taylor. Kanigel is a professor of science writing at MIT, where he directs its Graduate Program in Science Writing. He has worked with leather, off and on, for more than 30 years.”

From the rear panel, next to a hole.

“Is it real or faux real? You decide. Tell us if you feel the material covering this book is real or faux real—and let us now what you think of the book. Win money-saving coupons and get fun facts about the material used to cover this book when you participate. E-mail fauxreal@nas.edu now!”

The boards are kind of a sickly yellow color, very cheap to the touch. The contest should really be whether they are leatherette or fake leatherette.

I emailed the following message weeks ago.

“This book was very interesting—certainly the best I’ve ever seen on real and fake leather. I am going to guess that the cover is actually made out of fake leather, because you could totally fake us out good by using real leather, but that would probably cost so much more that it wouldn't be worth it.”

Thus I participated, but did not receive a reply from this National Academy of Sciences address, let alone any money-saving coupons or fun facts. What could be more transitory than an email address in a book, but I sent it in the year of publication and half expected the promised bounty. Were they so flooded with responses that they’ve had trouble keeping up? Was this just a cheap gimmicky promotion they never intended to honor? Or was the offer itself fake, serving as intentional irony? You decide.

Book Blogs

Sarah’s Books—Used & Rare

http://sarahsbooksusedrare.blogspot.com

Posted 9/7/2007

“Odd Volumes and Explained Absences”

We've started shopping at the supermarket nearest our new house. Of course while I'm checking out the groceries, Ryan is checking out the dollar used book bin placed, I think courtesy of United Way, at the front of each store in this particular chain. And he comes up to me with a dear old book, Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford 1887), olive green cloth, gilt lettering on the spine, large paper edition. Only problem: it's volume six only, of a six-volume set. Where are the other five? Will I be scrounging in this dollar bin for the rest of eternity, hoping against hope that they will show up, one by one? Yes, yes I will. I did this with my huge Scribner set of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson - I found most of a broken set at a library sale years ago and couldn't pass it up, then at the same sale the following year I found two more volumes in the set. The spines were faintly discolored in a uniform way, so it was obvious they matched my set. Now, and most likely forever, I'm only missing one volume. And this library discontinued their annual sale a few years ago.

Anyway, back to Boswell - I resisted bringing this book home, poor volume six, because I knew it was going to be a real problem, and I've just spent several evenings struggling with what to do with other problems such as this, boxes and boxes of them - books that I've taken home for purely sentimental reasons. But under the bright lights of the supermarket, looking at that lovely old Oxford book, I flipped it open and saw two things: first, that this volume contained only “addenda, index, dicta philosophi, &c.” so technically it was readable on its own (the dicta philosophi is “a concordance of Johnson's sayings” and is just too good for words); second, the book has a large fold-out frontis - “A Chart of Dr. Johnson's Contemporaries, drawn up by Margaret & Lucy Hill, On the model of a Chart in Mr. Ruskin's 'Ariadne Florentina.'” Well. The book came home with us. You see how my mind justifies these things.

The pages are uncut, did I mention that? So I'm cutting them, reading the dicta philosophi this morning. Here are a few apt samples, to sum up the week (I'll leave out the source citations, for brevity):

Antiquarian: 'A mere antiquarian is a rugged thing.'

Concentrates: 'Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.'

Housewifery: 'The fury of housewifery will soon subside.'

Lexicographer: 'These were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer.'

Philosopher: 'I have tried in my time to be a philosopher; but I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.'

Rained: 'If it rained knowledge I'd hold out my hand.'

Verse: 'Verse sweetens toil.'

That's it from Johnson, for now. I'm wrapping things up at the shop today, because I'm about to go off to paint for a week. Another island retreat. I'll be sans computer, by choice, and I'll return after the 15th. I can't wait to get back to painting, but I just found out I'll be missing Ron Padgett's poetry reading up the road at the University of Maine on Wednesday next week, rats and double rats! His recent memoir of Joe Brainard was simply terrific, Joe (Coffee House Press 2004) and now he's got a new book of poems, How to Be Perfect (Coffee House Press 2007). I'm very sorry to miss him, but not so sorry that I'm going to come back to the mainland for the reading.

When I return I'll be posting pictures of books with decorative cloth covers - in my move I found a carton full of them. Books I kept only for their covers, and very lovely they are, too. Thanks for sticking with me, dear readers, through my frequent absences of late. I'll be settling in soon for the coming winter. Just gotta get a bit more actual living in first.

Ye Olde Booksellers

Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores and Auction Rooms by Guido Bruno (Detroit: The Douglas Book Shop, 1922) is further excerpted, though now from a new personal copy hand numbered 925 of 1,000 printed.

The Romance of a Chicago Book Dealer

Wells Street, between the river and East Chicago Avenue, is the Bowery of Chicago. Once a residential section, now the old mansions and frame cottages, hastily erected after the fire, are dilapidated and are used as lodging houses and factories of the inferior sort. Here and there a modern structure, a storage house or an industrial plant. Dan Martin's Mission is here, several rescue halls, a Salvation Army citadel, the famous coffee wagons on the corners of side streets, where unfortunates are given a cup of coffee, a loaf of bread and advice that should lead to salvation. The Moody church is the aristocrat of the quarter. Drunken men and women line the sidewalks day and night; gruesome phonographs are continually heard in rum shops. Policemen patrol in pairs, and this beat is considered the most dangerous in the whole city.

In the midst of one of the worst blocks is a large show window. A pawnbroker would be most appropriate in these surroundings. But it is not a pawnbroker's display; there are paintings and, if you choose to step nearer to examine them, you will scarcely believe your own eyes: a couple of portraits by Benjamin West, signed; a magnificent etching by Whistler, with the familiar butterfly in the left hand corner; high up near the ceiling, between mischievous gargoyles, a large canvas which one recognizes as a magnificent work of an Italian master. A few Duerers are pinned to the wall, rows of old books, not dusted for a long while, are on shelves in the center.

“If these things are genuine,” I thought, “they are priceless treasures; of course, they cannot be.” I entered the shop. There was just enough space to open the door, to squeeze in: piles of books from the floor to the very high ceiling, drawings, paintings, carvings, leaned against the dusty backgrounds of old tomes. It was the most extraordinary place I had ever entered. There seemed to be some order in this most astonishing disorder. A little bell sounded somewhere in the faraway background. It was a very long room. I heard approaching footsteps, very energetic footsteps. I was astonished that a person could worm his way through an almost invisible passage between the heaped-up stacks of volumes—an old gentleman with hair hanging to his shoulders, a long beard, wonderful eyes which seemed to sparkle in the dim light of the strange place. I liked him at once; his quiet melodious voice, his dreaming faraway look and the decision of his manner. I told him frankly that the strangeness of the place, in such strange surroundings, had attracted me. I came again and again. And I treasure the hours I spent in Mr. Doerner's “book-shop” as among the most pleasant of my life. I never grew tired of standing up there. There was no space for a chair, and I doubt if there was a chair in the place.

I think it sacrilege to call Julius Doerner a book seller or antique dealer. He is a collector and an antiquarian. He knows his books, and has more than half a million of them. He treasures his works of art, delights in showing them to you, but selling? that is another question. There is not a phase of American history he could not lecture on with more thoroughness than any American University professor. His collection of pamphlets, of the earliest newspapers and periodicals, his gift of finding important contemporary notices relating to American history, in foreign journals, books and chronicles, is remarkable. I thought him an eccentric gentleman of means, who after extensive travel round the world, had decided to lead the life of a hermit among his treasures. He had, in fact, traveled very little; collecting had been his passion from earliest youth; he had denied himself for almost three decades the comforts and good things of this world; and he had found a very efficient way of beating our high cost of living.

“It is not the high cost of living,” he used to say, “it is the cost of high living that troubles the world. For years I have expended seven cents a day for my living expenses, and you can see, yourself, that I am strong and healthy.”

He is an excellent musician. Beneath thousands of pounds of books an old-fashioned piano is buried in his shop. He called the pile of material, that had to be removed before he could open the instrument, his time clock. Every once in a while he would forget his work (which consisted mostly of reading and compiling) and would devote himself with all the fervor of an enthusiast to Beethoven, Bach or Mozart.

Very few customers come to his place of business. If some curiosity seeker, like myself, attempts to break into his sanctum, they find in him a courteous but not inviting or solicitous shop keeper. “What do you want?” is his curt question. If a book is asked for, he will fish it out from among his five hundred thousand books with an almost miraculous quickness, name the price, and then it is up to the customer to say “Yes” or “No,” and the interview is ended. His treasures are all “finds.” He discovered them in junk shops, in garrets of old mansions, in unpromising trunks of storage houses. There is, for instance, a most magnificent soft-shell cameo, a biblical scene, marvelous workmanship of some exquisite artist of the early Italian renaissance. He bought it from a pawnbroker for five dollars. He refused a staggering sum from Tiffany’s and resisted the very tempting price which Mrs. Potter-Palmer was willing to pay for it, not because he did not need the money or was holding out for a larger profit (the sum offered him was two thousand dollars, I believe), but because he preferred to have the cameo himself.

Someone who has known Mr. Doerner since his first arrival in Chicago told me his story. He was a civil engineer, and lost his wife and child in the same year. Grief and disappointment turned him against his profession. He inherited at this time something like twenty acres of land in Chicago, which were in those days outside the city limits, but are now the most valuable property in the city. He was waiting for a final settlement of the estate, and used his idle hours looking about the book-shops in Chicago. Soon he was well known and well liked by all the book dealers. He purchased books and his knowledge of books was astonishing. About twenty years ago Chicago was a great center for book auctions. Shiploads of books from England were sold here, and Mr. Doerner soon became a frequenter of the auction rooms. Early printed books were his hobby. Once he could not resist and put in his bid of several hundred dollars for a rare collection. The books went to him. He could not pay, but gave as security a mortgage on his legacy. In subsequent auctions he bought large lots, increasing the mortgage upon his real estate. Then came the day when the auctioneers demanded payment. They foreclosed the mortgage, bought Mr. Doerner’s property at auction for a ridiculously small amount of money, at once quit the book auction business, parceled out Mr. Doerner’s twenty acres of land into building lots, and became—millionaires.

Mr. Doerner bore his misfortune with equanimity. He continued his regular trips to the book dealers and one day a proposition was put before him. A bookseller on Wells Street, one of the oldest in the city, died suddenly, and his stock of books had to be catalogued in order to be sold at public auction for the benefit of his estate:

“Would Mr. Doerner undertake to catalogue the stock and appraise it; the estate would pay him three dollars per day for his service?” Mr. Doerner accepted, and, to make the story short, at the end of six months, the cataloguing and appraising were not yet finished, the book-seller’s heirs were unwilling to pay Mr. Doerner’s fees, which amounted to several hundred dollars, upon the dubious chance of reimbursement by public auction:

“Would Mr. Doerner accept the books, themselves, in payment of his claim?” He would.

And so he found himself the proprietor of a book shop.

Mr. Doerner has made discoveries during his career which were of the utmost importance to American history. His collection of paintings, especially of American paintings, would fill a private museum. He hates commercialism, he loves weak humanity, and, strange to say, the disreputable men and women of Wells Street love him, and he and his possessions are safe in the most dangerous part of the city.

Or is it true, as he once answered in a rather pessimistic mood: “If they suspected that I had only one thirty-second carat of a diamond in my place, they would murder me and loot my shop in order to find it. But books or paintings, who cares for them in America?”

Powner’s Book Shop

No, there is no accident, no riot on the corner of Clark Street, opposite the City Hall. The scrambling mass of people are simply book lovers and book collectors, and Powner’s has got in a new consignment of books. Such scenes occur every Saturday. The big stalls in front of the shop are filled with all sorts of books, old Roman antiquities, books on sports, old poetry, collected by someone who had disposed of his books, or who had left his treasures behind him. Mr. Powner used to be a school teacher in Greensburg, Indiana, and he started his book business about twelve years ago with the thoroughness of a school master. Rare and valuable books are his own special department, and he leaves modern books entirely to his clerks.

His shop today is the center for the Chicago collectors. The human interest he takes in his customers is that of a real antiquarian. Everybody is at home in his shop. He doesn’t begrudge anyone finding a gem on his “quarter counter.” Last week, for instance, some lucky chap found a first edition of Rousseau’s “Emile” with Rousseau’s autograph presentation inscription to the King and the royal coat of arms on the binding, and bought the book for seventy-five cents. “Such things may happen,” was Mr. Powner’s remark when he heard of the transaction. “I am glad he got it.”

Saturday is the great book day. In the back room upon empty book boxes men of all walks of life sit around, prosperous business men, millionaires, who are just enjoying living, students, newspaper men from the nearby newspaper offices, but they all are linked by a common love. They are all ardent book collectors.

There are a good many other book shops in Chicago. There is Hill's, who caters to the extravagant wishes of Western millionaires. Then there is McClurge's, the Model Book Store, conducted like a modern department store.

But then there is the unique product of the Chicago book market, the peripatetic book-seller. Half collector, half merchant, these men are constantly nosing about shops, picking up books in Powner's, for instance, for twenty-five cents and selling them at once for two dollars and a half to Mr. Hill, who they know has an inquiry for that particular copy. They love the uncertainty of their daily bread. Setting out in the morning upon their rounds, they look forward to their finds of the day. In a junk shop they, perhaps, will run across one of those scarce items which are found once in a lifetime, and again they may find nothing but worry about the needs of the day.

In Boston

Book stores are the intellectual barometers of our cities. Show me where people buy their books and I will tell you what sort of life they lead. Book stores always were and are mirrors of the habits and intellectual preferences of men and women.

The private library has ceased to be the pride of the home. Homes have given way to apartments and flats with only little space to spare for book shelves. The garage has taken the place of the library. We see our friends in hotels and clubs, we spend our evenings only rarely at home. Our Age of Electricity and rapid transportation facilities does not permit us to acquire the placid habits of book collectors and of book lovers. Sure enough we read books, because we want to know what their authors have to say. But the author remains a stranger to us, the book once read is done with forever. We speak about automobiles, we look forward to owning a machine, we are building garages with the same enthusiasm that our fathers used to expend on their libraries and their books.

New York is different. But New York is not an American city. It’s so near to Europe and its population so distinctly foreign that the change of the last 50 years is hardly noticeable yet in its book shops. Detroit, the old French settlement, which only ten years ago was a tenth of its present size, has no second-hand book shops at all. The Detroit book dealers mete out light summer fiction which fits into people’s lunch baskets in the summer and sentimental Christmas carols in the winter. Technical books, automobile literature are their specialties. This is only natural. Ninety per cent of the people are building motor cars in order to make a living; they are the buyers of the technical books. The minority live in order to buy cars and make motor trips, and therefore they need light fiction.

The character of Albany is most truthfully portrayed in its book stores. Our legislators have so much time on their hands that they actually read historical books, books about Dutch New York, about the Wars of the Revolution, law books, old state records. It is considered good form to collect a historical library after being elected to office and residing in Albany. But curiously enough in these same serious book stores loads of that sort of fiction can be found which smuthounds of the Vice Society are eternally trying to banish from earth. Philadelphia, of course, specializes in Quaker literature; Buffalo, infected by the spirit of near East Aurora, is swamped with the things Elbert Hubbard used to love. Chicago discloses the peculiar love for art, literature and philosophy that its great percentage of German workmen brought over from their fatherland and left as inheritance to the second and third generation. It is almost incredible, yet true, that laborers, coming home from work in the stock yards, stop at the book stalls and buy an add volume of Kant, or Heines’ “Badlands and Poems.” Chicago always had the finest German books in the country, most likely brought over by the immigrants.

San Francisco has a touch of the East. Books on mysticism have the honor place. Curious books of all kinds are bought eagerly. Indeed, the book stores here tell you the story of California’s strange cults, of its mystics, its prophets and its thousands and one seekers after the hidden truths of the universe.

The last ten years have wrought an astonishing change in the book stores all over the country, but nowhere a sadder and more lamentable one than in Boston, Mass.

Old Cornhill

This oldest street of Boston, the Cheapside of New England, once an important center of city trade, gave Boston its literary charm. In the dilapidated old-time queer buildings, half a dozen book stores invited the lovers of literature. Here was the favorite haunt of the men who gave Boston a literary reputation. It was here in Cornhill that Thomas Burnham founded the first second-hand book shop in the United States in 1825. Young Burnham went from here day after day, with a basket of books on his arm, to the wharves to trade with sea-faring people. Almost one hundred years have elapsed and the shop is still there. Oliver Wendell Holmes had his chair and desk in “The Old Corner Book Shop”, and in Colesworthy's was a hidden nook where Whittier used to hide for an hour or two, reading newly arrived books, buy only rarely buying. ”Littlefield's” was next door, where Lowell, Longfellow and Emerson used to congregate, talk and occasionally buy additions to their libraries.

But alas! Boston is no more the Athens of America. The book stores on Cornhill have shrunk to the number of four. New buildings have invited modern business to invade the neighborhood. The remaining book dealers, still following the traditions of half a century, are very old men. Their days are counted and soon Cornhill will be remembered as one of the landmarks that have been swept away by the modern spirit and are gone forever.

Burnham’s Antique Book Store

Richard C. Lichtenstein, fifty-five years ago an apprentice to old Mr. Burnham, is now the proprietor of the shop. He has many memories of great book days in Boston.

“The most important of all my 'finds' since I entered the second-hand book trade in the late sixties,” he said (he's a good and entertaining talker), ”was the copy of Poe's 'Tamerlaine,' which created a great sensation among collectors. This small pamphlet of forty pages, published by Collin F. Thomas in Boston in 1827, had escaped the searches of the keenest of book collectors. I usually spent my noon hour in other second-hand stores, and one day I found this small pamphlet which I purchased for 25 cents. I had a good many opportunities to dispose of it, but didn't sell it before 1892, in auction. It was knocked down to Dodd, Meade & Co. for $1,850. 'Tamerlaine' has remained unique among all the books, being today the most costly American book known. I understand a New York bookseller is holding a copy at $15,000.

“One day, I was offered a small volume which lacked the title and two leaves. There was nothing specially attractive about the book, but the same intuition for which I never could account and that guided me through my whole life as a bookseller, urged me to offer the owner $2.00, which was readily accepted. Later, I found out that the book was a copy of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in New England, Cambridge, 1640. Bishop Hurst bought the book for $1,000, and after his death, it fetched $2,500 in the auction of his library. But I have also met with great disappointments. The greatest one was on a visit to an old Boston family residing on Beacon Hill. An elderly lady, the only surviving member of the family, wished to dispose of her library, and I found her seated between two piles of books busily engaged in tearing out the fly leaves wherever they contained any inscriptions. Nothing could induce her to stop this barbaric atrocity. I begged of her to let me examine the fly leaves and titles before she threw them in the open grate. I saw to my grief, John Hancock’s inscriptions, and George Washington’s presentation to some lady contemporary, revolutionary persons of the first importance. Another opportunity I missed was years ago when Mr. James J. Blaine happened to drop in our shop, selecting a copy of Count Grammont’s “Memoirs,” asking to have the volume laid aside for him. He wrote his name on the title page and was to call and pay for it on his return to the hotel. The incident must have slipped his memory, for he never returned for the book, and I was foolish enough to erase his signature from the fly leaf. Especially in our days, where ‘Association Books’ were so very much in demand, Blaine’s name in the ‘Memoirs’ would have been a sought after curiosity.”

A New and Evil Spirit

Boylston street faces the big park, is a lively promenade, a good deal of shopping is done in its neighborhood, a street always densely populated. The Garden Side Book Shop hung out its shingle here, which consists of a huge garden gate.

Women have a good deal to do in public life in Boston, and women are determined to be the intellectual guides of Boston book buyers, at least of such as wish to be “modern” and “up-to-date.” The Garden Side Book Shop is conducted by women exclusively. I dare say women must also be the chief buyers. The most marvelous and costly bindings on rows and rows of shelves. Books of poetry, novels, anthologies that were never heard of and what is still worse, will never be heard of, are beautifully dressed like brainless women, who wear gowns of Worth or Lady Duff-Gordon. Mrs. Bertha Beckford, one of the proprietors, approached me with the charm of the reception lady in a fashionable hair-dressing establishment, and invited me to inspect “some darling little books, the sweetest ever, just arrived, from Paris.” I followed her to a little salon done in pink and canary and viewed little miniature books, bound in French crepe, a wallpaper effect. There were French anthologies of bits of poetry and of war sentiment. Dowagers, with grown-up granddaughters, and studded lorgnettes went into fits of ecstasy over the “darling books,” and I shouldn’t be surprised if they bought some and took them “as much appreciated gifts” to some home for convalescent soldiers and sailors.

Book Shops for Boys and Girls

“Splendid,” I thought, seeing the sign next door. The shop where boys and girls can come and choose their reading. It's located on the fourth floor of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union. It looks like a pharmacy. There wasn't a boy or girl in sight. A few old ladies, who must have left the sewing circle on the third floor, were sitting about, reading. I looked around the shelves and I wondered if all the Boston boys and girls lack red blood and the gift of fancy and actually read the books I saw. Miss Alma Howard, one of the dispensers of this shop, told me that all books are being carefully censored and selected by one Bertha E. Mahoney, the director of the Book Shop of the Union. Bertha seemed to be the ruling spirit. She has forbidden such and such books, she has placed others on the blacklist, but she also selected books that ought to be read by boys and girls. I asked what literary qualifications Miss Mahoney had to qualify her for the censoring. All I could gather was the fact that Miss Mahoney is Miss Mahoney, a whilom superintendent of the food shops of the union on the floor below. Needless to say, the union is a highly aristocratic place, frequented exclusively by the flower of Boston's ultra fashionables. Why doesn't someone start a real book store for boys and girls? Accessible to everyone, where second-hand books could be had for ten cents or a quarter?

Every other old building in Boston, and many churches bear honor tablets, telling us that here assembled revolutionists of 1776. The Boston of today, with all its laws of restriction and of censorship, is proud of its ancient rebels. How paradoxical! In talking about laws, a new one has just been enacted. The police apply to the sale of second-hand books the same rule as to the sale and buying of second-hand clothing. A dealer, purchasing books from anyone, has to report the purchase to the police, describe the article purchased and has to wait thirty days before he can sell it. The law requires that each book dealer must pay five dollars for a license. A similar law had been enacted 60 years ago, as a civil war protective measure. Oh, Athens of America! Selling books with a second-hand clothes dealer's license!

Books in Ice Box

Opposite the Copley-Plaza, in a fashionable little building of its own, is the Dorado of America's rejected poets and poetesses, essayists, novelists, free verse artists and of everybody else Amy Lowell and Ezra Pound would press to their bosom. Here is the book shop of the Four Seas Publishing Company, and never was there a greater collection of literary atrocities in one room than in this airy, inviting “Hall of Fame.” The soul of Amy Lowell greets one uncannily articulate from the page of each book. A very ambitious clerk praised the authors of the books higher than genius has ever been praised in America. “We have bought 81 titles from the Badger Publishing Company only recently and have not spared any expense to print the most attractive title and jackets for this new addition to our stock.” Everybody knows the Badger books. The Badger Publishing Company gladly accommodates authors of novels and extends to them the privileges of their printing establishment provided they are willing to pay for publication.

I descended to the basement to see the enormous stock of books the Four Seas Company had acquired. The store must have been occupied by a wholesale florist previously, and the most tremendous ice box I ever saw in my life filled the whole basement. The Badger books, thousands of them, were neatly piled up in the ice box. They were in the proper place, indeed.

The Mysterious Book Shop

On Washington Street is a very attractive book store conducted by a blind couple. Man and wife about thirty years of age, both totally blind. The shop is scrupulously clean. If you ask for a book, the proprietor will find it in a miraculous way, provided it is on the shelves. If you are browsing about, picking up a book here or there, he will ask you to read off to him the title, and then tell you the price. Both look happy, contented, and seem prosperous.

I wondered how it had happened that they started in the book business, that both of them were blind; had they been blind before they married or had misfortune overtaken them after their marriage? They’re in a strange and mysterious place, but peaceful and harmonious.

Made in IOBA

Zebulon Montgomery Pike’s Great Western Adventure, 1806-1807 by Jack Kyle Cooper (Colorado Springs, CO: Clausen Books, 2007). $69.95 (20% off to dealers); very limited number available in hard cover hb isbn 0-9787046-1-4; hb isbn-13 978-0-9787046-1-2 (4to, blue buckram with gilt spine titling; 214pp, including index); b&w illustrations by Jon MacManus, plus maps, and four color plates. The dust jacket (painted exclusively for this publication) is from a portrait by Colorado Springs artist Joseph Bonomo, showing Pike and his climbing party on Mount Rosa while attempting the ascent of the ”Grand Peak,” later named Pike's Peak by John Charles Fremont. Research of Pike's clothing was completed by Colorado Springs historian John Patrick Michael Murphy who, after researching Pike's journals, manufactured the outfit by closely following Lt. Pike's descriptions. From photos of Mr. Murphy wearing the Pike climbing gear, Joe Bonomo created his portrait which is now in the collection of Jack Cooper's widow, Jenny Cooper. The book is also available in paperback for $35 (20% dealer discount), isbn 0-9787046-0-6, isbn-13 978-0-8787046-0-5. This is Pam and Doug Clausen's first publication. The Clausen's are continuing the tradition of bookselling begun in 1946 by Doug's father Henry A. Clausen, who opened the first Clausen's Bookshop in 1946 in Colorado Springs. In our seventh location at 2131 North Weber Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80907. Toll-free 1-888-412-7717, or 1-719-471-5884. Shop hours Wed-Sat 10am-6pm. We are a general stock used and antiquarian bookshop, with emphasis on classics and history. We also offer certified appraisals and book mending services. For more information go to http://www.clausenbooks.com.

The Herd Shot ‘Round the World

The Successful Stockman and Manual of Husbandry by Andrew A. Gardenier is one of those great old turn of the last century agricultural titles that sat right next to the bible in the farmhouse. The copy in hand contains various color illustration “manikans”—four tipped-in cut-outs of a cow, for example, showing anatomical divisions, muscles, the circulatory system, and the skeleton, respectively, all resting on a paste-down page of the “digestive apparatus” complete with nine moving organ flaps. Hiding behind the last one are two little fetuses. Brilliant! I bet the children liked playing with this. Anyway, there are 684 pages of arcane information in here, but the farmer saw fit to attach a single small clipping from some ephemeral agricultural publication to one of the first endpapers by means of a straight pin. “To Prevent Choking.—As apples were plentiful last season and our cows had access to them at all times, we had a couple of cases of ‘apple in the throat;’ the animals were in a very dangerous condition and in the last stages. A heaping teaspoonful of gunpowder was given and in 15 minutes bloat and gasses were gone and the cow stopped choking. Thus by the application of this very simple remedy the cow was saved.”

House Calls

All I could ascertain was this. She lived in an old house in the country, about 100 books, very old, very interesting looking, and she didn’t know who owned them to begin with. “They were just there.” I asked for some of the titles. “They are not down here with me. You’ll just have to look at them.” I kept saying no but she broke me down, agreeing to meet in the parking lot of the local library on one of her trips through town. I usually don’t work out of cars, but this seemed like a good compromise. I almost always guarantee a minimum of $25 if they can pass the polite but generally rigorous phone interrogation. The other day, for example, it only took three questions to ascertain that a young man’s 500 hardcover books in the attic were actually the leftovers he was not able to sell on half.com. When such house calls don’t work out, my $25 minimum serves as a fairly sharp reminder to improve my line of questioning; and I leave them my card which sometimes pays off. She called to firm up the time of our meeting, adding that she was hoping for $5 each.

“I already explained that they are probably not worth much at all. If you want $500 I don’t think we should bother getting together, as you would just be disappointed. You weren’t even able to tell me what kind of books they are.”

“They’re in the car already. History books and such. I’ll take $25. I just want to get rid of them.”

“Like I said before, they may be worth a lot more than that, but I won’t know until I see them.”

We agreed on a day and time. The car pulls in, the trunk pops open, and there sat six boxes of just about the most awful books you’d ever want to see, time-blasted, cracked and warped, dog-eared and foxed, oddly moisturized and linty, bad historical fiction and tame bodice-rippers from the likes of Thomas Costain, Frank Yerby and dozens of lesser lights in these fields, mostly ex-library to boot.

“Hmmm. I’ll give you the $25, but I can’t do anything at all with these, and only a couple are even good enough to donate to a charity book sale. You say you don’t know where they came from?”

“Nope. I run the lake association laundry room lending library where we have our summer camp, and they just appeared on the shelves one day four or five years ago.”

Somewhat Punny Bookstore Names

Lots of these are probably no longer in business.

A Likely Story (South Miami, FL)
A Likely Story (Urbana, IL)
A Novel Idea (Sarasota, FL)
A-Book-A-Brac Shop (Miami Beach, FL)
All Booked Up (The Villages, FL)
All That's Fit to Print (St. Petersburg, FL)
Beyond Words (Northampton, MA)
Bibliowha? (Beverly Hills, CA)
Bookberries (New York, NY)
Bookin' It (Little Falls, MN)
Bound to Please (Sidney, NY)
Burning Books (Austin, TX)
Chase the Bookseller (Boulder City, NV)
Deliberate Literate (Memphis, TN)
Dog Eared Book Barn (Hoosick, NY)
forWORDS (Torrance, CA)
Full of the Dickens (Sandusky, OH)
Hardback Cafe & Bookstore (Chapel Hill, NC)
Jots and Titles (Marietta, GA)
Moby Dickens (Taos, NM)
Monkey See, Monkey Read (Northfield, MN)
Novel Hovel (Redlands, CA)
Novel Shoppe, dba Aunt Teek's & Uncle Lectable's Vintage Store (Taylor, TX)
One for the Books (High Point, NC)
One for the Books (Newhall, CA)
Pleasure Bound (Sedona, AZ)
Run for Cover! (Brooklyn, NY)
Shelf Indulgence Books (San Francisco, CA)
The Bookkeepers (Texarkana, TX)
The Cerebral Deli (Dunseith, ND)
The Happy Booker (San Bernardino CA)
The Little Read Book (Wauwatosa, WI)
The Prints and the Paper (Eugene, OR)
The Scholar Ship (Stafford, VA)
Tome Raiders (Charlotte, NC)
Twice Read Tales (Kennesaw, GA)
Twice Sold Tales (Red Bank, NJ)
Verbatim (Foley, AL)
Westside Stories (Santa Cruz, CA)
What the Book? (Seoul, South Korea) [Editor’s favorite]
What the Dickens (Auckland, New Zealand)
Words-Worth Books (Holbrook, NY)
Writ & Wisdom (Pittsburgh, PA)

Submitted by Gwen Foss (http://www.gwenfoss.com/about.asp)

Estate Sale Tales

Friday morning, and just one local estate sale to check out. I could go into all the surrounding suburbs or nearby cities or outlying towns but don't feel like it. Kind of an interesting house with knotty pine floors, old print curtains, red floor lamps, and rather vast interior spaces. The Ponderosa East. I got there late because I generally can't abide the opening gun crush these days. Most of the good furniture was sold already. Found a very heavy old ledger in the basement filled with transcribed musical scores. For example, “Casta Diva” from the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini. On old, large format rag paper, title pages (some decorated) in Italian in the flourishing hand of one Giovanni Ruscetta, all the musical notes written out, four to eight pages each, mostly dated 1897 Naples. Don't know what they might be worth but the whole batch was only $25. The homeowner had been the longtime choral director at a big high school a couple of towns away. I was poking around in a basement file cabinet and made a low offer on all his files. They were bemused but agreed if I would leave anything personal for the lawyer, which I can do with my eyes closed by now. There were also twenty tied bundles of music on a table in the garage all marked $12 each, probably so they could go down to $10 each, but by noon they would have been happy to get $5 for the whole lot.

On the antiques side, picked up an anatomically correct ceramic bulldog that I thought was kind of cheap at $8 till I got home in the bright light of my outside work area and saw the fine line that bespoke of a broken head. Either I'm slipping or it was simply too dark in that piney house. Ben Cartwright would have mentioned the repair if this was his live garage sale rather than his dead estate sale. On the other hand, he would have shot anybody who tried to steal it. The bulldog will stay outside prettifying a cement block which braces a twisty Jenny Lind planter-bearing headboard, there to remind me about looking for damage while heading out on these campaigns. I stuck that headboard in the round stone strip between my back walk and garage wall a few years ago for the same reason, to remind me not to buy old beds in bad condition, but it looks all grown in now draped with trailing nasturtiums and other blossoms. Maybe this area can be made into a shrine for relatively weatherproof auction and yard sale errors. Also got a large Imperial two-section blue enamel with white stenciled letters clam steamer/chowder dispenser for $15 that produced an incredibly loud noise as I tripped running back up the basement steps before the light changed in this still-crowded estate sale. Thick bright red and green suspendered woolen pants with an old Montgomery Ward label for a dollar (an easy twenty at the antique center) and ten or so other items rounded out the lot, for a grand total of $175. The deceased had a long high narrow shelf crowded with dozens of ceramic Irish decanters, all marked $30. I pulled down the “Dogs of Ireland” specimen while they were tallying my purchases even though it looked more than a little tacky. “We can work with you on the price if you take them all.” I burst out laughing but they took it well. There is very much of an ebb and flow with estate sales, and the tide often starts going out rapidly at noon on the first day.

Among the files were many of his non-legal personal papers. Obviously there were no descendants. First you notice this by what's for sale and then confirmation usually comes in the checkout line banter. Here were his college term papers (mostly As but two Cs marked “late” and “too much quoted material”), lots of glee club work, WW II action in the Pacific Theater, very active in music organizations, summer music camps, an impressive resume, etc. There was one carefully preserved letter from the 1970s containing ostensibly friendly but rather ominous advice from a superior in the school system. R.K.O. (many folders carried these initials and I thought they might contain valuable movie material till I got home) had to reinvigorate his efforts with the music department, which had become noticeably tired. Too many old timers were coasting. Look what the principal did to the Language Department last year. You're next. I can't sell this for you. You must continually impress. No doubt you'll want to discuss this with me soon but don't be on the defensive. Think Positive! Among his many letters of acknowledgement and choral group hotel reservations (you were working hard the whole time Robert…screw them!) were lots of early job offers, including one from a new Arizona high school that sounded great. He might have been happier (or even still alive) if he'd taken it. It never fails to amaze that a schlub like me should be the final evaluator of such a life. Two large boxes documenting his earthly presence waiting for Monday's recycling trash, and the common published items are just fertilizer for my growing business. Hopefully. That reminds me to check on Giovanni Ruscetta, the musical transcriptionist. Nothing jumping off the screen. Would have been better if he himself was famous too. Probably just a student or a wannabe. The only decent surprise in the whole lot was an incongruous Pittsfield, MA boxing poster from the 1930s or so which should do pretty well on the Bay or at auction. The referee was “Shotsy” Shanahan, and the biggest fighters were “Chick” West, “Young” Oliver, and “Joe” Eagen. “Joe”?

Book Fallouts

Image of 7^th Ave. Books

7^th Ave. Books, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY

I took this picture last summer, not realizing I should have panned a bit to the right in order to catch Park Slope Books just next door. The sad demise of 7th Ave. Books is reported in the 7/28/2007 issue of The Brooklyn Paper.

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/29/30_29seventhavebooks.html

Book Store Labels: The Christian Book Centre, Madang, New Guinea

Found on the upper left rear inside cover of Mountains in the Clouds by Olaf Ruhen (London: Angus & Robertson, 1963).

Solicitations

The Standard can always use interesting, well-written articles on subjects of interest to the bookselling trade, although we would fall off our Office Max chair if we ever received any that were not solicited or strong-armed to begin with. Please query first, however, to editor@ioba.org. You will be supplied with submission guidelines, but to summarize, the material should be original, it is subject to editing, you retain copyright, and of course there is no payment other than most everyone’s satisfaction. You do not need to be a member of IOBA, except for the IOBA Bookseller Profiles section, though we would surely like you to join. We are very interested in the book trade outside the U.S. as well.

Currently we are seeking short pieces for the following self-explanatory columns. House Calls; Garage/Estate/Library Sale Tales; Auction Action; Book Show Impressions; Book Store Lore; and Library File.

Booku

Early preview estate sale guy, you said all the books upstairs and down for $300,

but you reneged on the upstairs, so while you're in the basement haggling with a plumber,

I'll just liberate this blue dictionary to you compact edition of the OED to me I’ve always wanted.

Comic Books

From the comic section of the New York Sunday Mirror dated 8/22/1948, “Louie” by Harry Hanan.

IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 4.

Table of Contents

Foreword

The ABE Bookseller Ratings Deception

Booklisting Site Ratings

Rare Book School: A Week Among Bright Bookish Minds

The Price Guide Is Right (or Is It?)

An Interview with Judith Tingley of Meetinghouse Books and MARIAB

-Hi Judith. What is your life story before getting into bookselling, in one paragraph (and no cheating with a fifty page paragraph)?

-What are your first memories of books?

-What attracted you to bookselling?

-Where have you toiled in the field, and where did you run your own shops?

-Ken Haverly is your book mate. How did you meet, and do you find it fairly uncommon for couples to be equal partners in the bookselling business?

-You loaded up the truck and you moved to South Deerfield, in Western Massachusetts, that is, Happy Valley, the sleepy west of the woody east, one of the coolest regions in the whole dang country. How did that happen, and tell us about the history of the building you are in.

-Any ghostly vibes there late at night?

-No bosses, and now no landlords. Congratulations! Did you have to make any improvements?

-What about shelving?

-What quirks does the building have?

-What are your specialties?

-How do you acquire most of your stock?

-Can you share some stellar finds and sales with us?

-Tell us about the one(s) that got away.

-What percentage of your inventory is online, and is that mixed in or kept separate?

-On average, how many visitors do you have each day, which will vary seasonally of course, and roughly what percentage of them are known to you?

-Some unusual things you've seen in bookstores?

-There is a fairly high concentration of quality booksellers in the Pioneer Valley. Were you well and hospitably received?

-And what about the South Deerfield reception?

-Where should one have lunch after visiting your shop?

-You are the current president of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers. Tell us your understanding of the history of this organization.

-How many members do you have, and what does it take to join?

-MARIAB is in the middle of New England Independent Booksellers Association country, and right next to fellow entities such as the New Hampshire Antiquarian Booksellers Association. Does Rhode Island ever talk about seceding?

-What services do regional bookseller associations such as MARIAB provide?

-What duties do you have as president?

-Anything exciting coming up for MARIAB?

-Thanks for your time Judith. Keep up the good work, and best wishes.

A Book Dealer Visits Peru, or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Ephemeral Assays: Self Listing

List the places you go in your mind when you want some peace and quiet.

List all the names you’ve been called, endearing and not so.

List what always makes you laugh.

List the ways you don’t care to die.

List the animals that really scare you.

List the heroic feats you’ve performed.

List the things you’ve said that you’d like to take back.

List the brand names you buy and swear by.

List all the modes of transportation you’ve taken.

List the first thoughts that run through your mind the moment you get up.

List the biggest turning points in your life.

List all the times you’ve gone off the beaten path.

List how you’ve contributed to the welfare of the planet.

List all the celebrities you’d like to sock in the face.

List all the celebrities you’d like to have sex with.

List the ways the government lies to you.

List all the magazines you subscribe to.

List the movies you’ve seen that were really worth two hours of your life.

List the cultural spots you’ve visited that move you so much you are speechless.

List the times you said yes when you wish you had said no.

List the times you have consciously endangered your life.

List those unanswered questions that have been plaguing you since childhood.

Books About Bookselling: A Backward Look

Book Repair: Revelations, Decisions, and Disclosures

The Pros and Cons of Amazon.com for Buyers and Sellers

FOR BUYERS: PROS

FOR BUYERS: CONS

FOR SELLERS: PROS

FOR SELLERS: CONS

Joe Orlando of Fenwick Street Used Books and Music

Bob Schilling of Schillingslist

My Pilgrimage into Books

My Venture into Online Bookselling

My Business

Victor Goldring of Goldring Books

Addenda

Happy Hits

Descriptions of Fine to Very Good Books

Blurbettes

Book Blogs

Ye Olde Booksellers

Made in IOBA

The Herd Shot ‘Round the World

House Calls

Image of 7^th Ave. Books