Member Blogs > Minivan of the Revolution

• Introducing the Minivan of the Revolution Book Club

  Tue, 02 Jun 2015 04:30:30 Permalink
  Last August I visited Winchester, Virginia, to interview for a cataloging job with Lorne Bair Rare Books. When I left, I returned home to Brooklyn with two things: the promise of a job starting that fall, and reading Lorne had assigned me as preparation: Volume Oneof Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Person’s Socialism and American […] Read More

• What My Friends Think I Do (Part 1 in a Series)

  Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:04:47 Permalink
  This Monday morning, the biggest news to hit the antiquarian book trade in roughly 400 years became public: my colleagues Dan Wechsler and George Koppelman, booksellers in New York City, unveiled a copy of a sixteenth century dictionary which could, quite plausibly, have once belonged to William Shakespeare — complete with annotations possibly in the bard’s hand […] Read More

• France Owns De Sade

  Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:51:33 Permalink
    In continuing rare book & manuscript news, the Bibliothque Nationale wants to repatriate the manuscript for De Sade’s 100 Days of Sodom, surely one of the filthiest and most depraved works ever written. Below is Elaine Sciolino’s article on the fracas. Of interest to us is Ms. Sciolino’s assertion that “There is nothing erotic Read More

• Bread & Roses: The Strike That Changed Everything

  Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:56:23 Permalink
  Today marks the 101st anniversary of the beginning of the Lawrence Textile Strike, one of the signal events of 20th-century American labor history. This was the strike that put the IWW on the map, the strike that invented the moving picket line (to get around anti-loitering laws) and, most importantly, the first successful, large-scalestrike in Read More

• GUEST POST FROM ZHENYA DZHAVGOVA: WHAT VIRGINIA TAUGHT

  Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:50:28 Permalink
  Over the last weekend of July, I had the distinct pleasure of hosting a visit from my gifted colleague Zhenya Dzhavgova, who was on her way home from Rare Book School in Charlottesville. She repaid me with the following excellent blogpost. Aside from her endless flattery of me, there’s much here worth reading, and I Read More

• FYI: I Am Not A Goddamned Curator

  Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:12:55 Permalink
  I’ve observed a somewhat unsettling uptick in the use of the “c” word lately. “Curator” once had a fairly secure, if perhaps not precisely fixed, definition, stemming from its original meaning in Middle English (couratour, n., legal guardian). In this sense a curator was a guardian, not just of a collection or an institution, but Read More

• Tales of Splendid Acquisition: Rescued From the Burn-Pile

  Tue, 29 May 2012 10:32:54 Permalink
  Steve Conliff, WE ARE NOT McGOVERNABLE. Columbus: 1972   I’ll be posting Part II of my midwest bookhunting saga later this week. Meanwhile, I hope everyone had a swell Memorial Day weekend, and spent some time seeking solidarity with the working-class heroes (yes, I said heroes)who’ve given their lives fighting for our country. It’s been Read More

• Six Days On The Road & I'm Gonna Make It Home Tonight: Part 1 of a 3 Part Series

  Fri, 25 May 2012 11:04:25 Permalink
    Part I: The Crisis   For a few years now, there’s been a crisis* brewing in the rare book industry.** Small, regional bookfairs all over the country are disappearing at a rate matched only by that of the (not coincidental) disappearance of brick-and-mortar used bookshops. Why or whether we should be concerned about either Read More

• TRADE LESSONS – a Guest Post From Zhenya Dzhavgova

  Thu, 24 May 2012 05:11:56 Permalink
  This week begins what I hope will be a series of guest appearances by friends and colleagues whose brains I admire. First up: Zhenya Dzhavgova, well known to many of you as one of the brightest of the “Bright Young Things” recently profiled over at Nate Pedersen’s Fine Books Blog. As a younger dealer, just Read More

• A Baby Book Fair In The Heart of the Confederacy, and Another in the Land of Handsome Anarchists

  Tue, 15 May 2012 04:52:55 Permalink
    The Grand Foyer of the Library of Virginia – a well-lit place for books. Note well-lit booksellers in background.   Acouple of weekends ago I found myself in Richmond, Virginia, in the novel (to me) role of co-organizer of a small (40 dealers), regional (Richmond, Virginia – Capitol of the Confederacy!) bookfair. The smart Read More

• Constructivist Posters by the Sternberg Brothers

  Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:45:08 Permalink
  Colleague John Ptak has recently uploaded to his blog a stunning group of images of Soviet avant-garde posters by the team of Vladimir and Georgii Sternberg. If you know anything about me, you’ll know immediately upon seeing them how my heart now aches with a lust for acquisition. Read More