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Old Books, Rare Friends

Author : Madeline B. Stern

Publisher : Main Street Books

Page : 307 pages

File Size : 11,82 MB

Release : 2012-05-30

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0307874532

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Book Description

Louisa May Alcott once wrote that she had taken her pen for a bridegroom. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, friends and business partners for fifty years, have in many ways taken up their pens and passion for literature much in the same way. The "Holmes & Watson" of the rare book business, Rostenberg and Stern are renowned for unlocking the hidden secret of Louisa May Alcott's life when they discovered her pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, along with her anonymously published "blood and thunder" stories on subjects like transvestitism, hashish smoking, and feminism. Old Books, Rare Friends describes their mutual passion for books and literary sleuthing as they take us on their earliest European book buying jaunts. Using what they call Finger-spitzengefühl, the art of evaluating antiquarian books by handling, experience, and instinct, we are treated to some of their greatest discoveries amid the mildewed basements of London's booksellers after the Blitz. We experience the thrill of finding one of the earliest known books printed in America between 1617-1619 by the Pilgrim Press and learn about the influential role of publisher-printers from the fifteenth century. Like a precious gem, Old Books, Rare Friends is a book to treasure about the companionship of two rare friends and their shared passion for old books.



Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller

Author : Oliver Darkshire

Publisher : Liveright Publishing

Page : 139 pages

File Size : 34,7 MB

Release : 2023-03-14

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1324092084

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Book Description

Instant National Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award "Witty, literary and very funny." —Minneapolis Star Tribune Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice. Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives—where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one. By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world’s oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.



Used and Rare

Author : Lawrence Goldstone

Publisher : St. Martin's Press

Page : 222 pages

File Size : 40,51 MB

Release : 2010-04-01

Category : Antiques & Collectibles

ISBN : 0312207492

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Book Description

Journey into the world of book collecting with the Goldstones-rediscover the joy of reading, laugh, and fall in love with books all over again. The idea that books had stories associated with them that had nothing to do with the stories inside them was new to us. We had always valued the history, the world of ideas contained between the covers of a book or, as in the case of The Night Visitor, some special personal significance. Now, for the first time, we began to appreciate that there was a history and a world of ideas embodied by the books themselves. Part travel story, part love story, and part memoir, Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone's Used and Rare provides a delightful love letter to book lovers everywhere.



Last Friends

Author : Jane Gardam

Publisher : Europa Editions

Page : 166 pages

File Size : 22,20 MB

Release : 2013-04-02

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1609451120

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Book Description

“The satisfying conclusion to Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy offers exquisite prose, wry humor, and keen insights into aging and death” (The New Yorker). While Old Filth introduced readers to Sir Edward Feathers, his dreadful childhood, and his decades-long marriage, The Man in the Wooden Hat was his wife Betty’s story. Last Friends is Terence Veneering’s turn. His beginnings were not those of the usual establishment grandee. Filth’s hated rival in court and in love is the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in the English midlands and a local girl. He escapes the war and later emerges in the Far East as a man of panache and fame. The Bar treats his success with suspicion: Where did this handsome, brilliant Slav come from? This exquisite story of Veneering, Filth, and their circle tells a bittersweet tale of friendship and grace and of the disappointments and consolations of age. They are all, finally, each other’s last friend as this magnificent series ends with the deep and abiding satisfaction that only great literature provides. “[Gardam’s] prose sparkles with wit, compassion and humor. She keeps us entertained, and she keeps us guessing. Be thankful for her books. Be thankful for this trilogy, which is ultimately an elegy, created with deep affection.” —The Washington Post “Restores us to an era rich in spectacle and bristling with insinuation and intrigue. Vivid, spacious, superbly witty, and refreshingly brisk . . . the story (and the author) will endure.” —The Boston Globe “All three Gardam books are beautifully written but it’s a pleasure to note that Last Friends is the most enjoyable, the funniest and the most touching.” —National Post





Bookends

Author : Leona Rostenberg

Publisher : Simon and Schuster

Page : 264 pages

File Size : 20,25 MB

Release : 2001

Category : Antiquarian booksellers

ISBN : 0743202457

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Book Description

The rare book dealers who delighted readers with the history of their bookselling days in "Old Books, Rare Friends" offer an intimate look at the joys of a friendship that has lasted more than half a century. of photos.



Nabokov's Butterfly and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books

Author : R. A. Gekoski

Publisher : Da Capo Press

Page : 240 pages

File Size : 15,19 MB

Release : 2004

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 9780786714520

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Book Description

A collector of rare books shares his personal experiences with twenty important volumes and other literary items, including a signed copy of Sylvia Plath's The Colossus, a copy of Nabokov's Lolita from Graham Greene, and the sale of J. R. R. Tolkien's college gown.



Our Country Friends

Author : Gary Shteyngart

Publisher : Random House

Page : 337 pages

File Size : 16,21 MB

Release : 2021-11-02

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1984855131

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Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews “A perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literature.”—Molly Young, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) Eight friends, one country house, and six months in isolation—a novel about love, friendship, family, and betrayal hailed as a “virtuoso performance” (USA Today) and “an homage to Chekhov with four romances and a finale that will break your heart” (The Washington Post) In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a Southern flamethrower of an essayist; and a movie star, the Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller Super Sad True Love Story.



The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

Author : Eva Jurczyk

Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.

Page : 336 pages

File Size : 42,12 MB

Release : 2022-01-25

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1728238609

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Book Description

International Bestseller "With its countless revelations about the dusty realms of rare books, a likable librarian sleuth who has just the right balance of compassion and wit, and a library setting that is teeming with secrets, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is a rare treat for readers. I loved this book!"—Matthew Sullivan, author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore Anxious People meets the delights of bookish fiction in a stunning debut following a librarian whose quiet life is turned upside down when a priceless manuscript goes missing. Soon she has to ask: what holds more secrets in the library—the ancient books shelved in the stacks, or the people who preserve them? Liesl Weiss long ago learned to be content working behind the scenes in the distinguished rare books department of a large university, managing details and working behind the scenes to make the head of the department look good. But when her boss has a stroke and she's left to run things, she discovers that the library's most prized manuscript is missing. Liesl tries to sound the alarm and inform the police about the missing priceless book, but is told repeatedly to keep quiet, to keep the doors open and the donors happy. But then a librarian unexpectedly stops showing up to work. Liesl must investigate both disappearances, unspooling her colleagues' pasts like the threads of a rare book binding as it becomes clear that someone in the department must be responsible for the theft. What Liesl discovers about the dusty manuscripts she has worked among for so long—and about the people who care for and revere them—shakes the very foundation on which she has built her life. The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is a sparkling book-club read about a woman struggling to step out from behind the shadows of powerful and unreliable men, and reveals the dark edge of obsession running through the most devoted bookworms. February 2022 INDIE NEXT Selection January 2022 LIBRARY READS Selection January 2022 Loan Star Selection Pop Sugar 35 Must-Read Thrillers and Mystery Books



Book Row

Author : Marvin Mondlin

Publisher : Simon and Schuster

Page : 564 pages

File Size : 19,50 MB

Release : 2019-10-15

Category : Antiques & Collectibles

ISBN : 1510752560

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Book Description

The American Story of the Bookstores on Fourth Avenue from the 1890s to the 1960s New York City has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue bracketed by Union Square and Astor Place. There, for nearly eight decades from the 1890s to the 1960s, thrived the New York Booksellers’ Row, or Book Row. This richly anecdotal memoir features historical photographs and the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as a book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes (or sixteen miles of books) in twelve miles of space. It’s a story cast with characters as legendary and colorful as the horse-betting, poker-playing, go-getter of a book dealer George D. Smith; the irascible Russian-born book hunter Peter Stammer; the visionary Theodore C. Schulte; Lou Cohen, founder of the still-surviving Argosy Book Store; and gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his formidably shrewd wife, Jenny. Book Row remembers places that all lovers of books should never forget, like Biblo & Tamen, the shop that defied book-banning laws; the Green Book Shop, favored by John Dickson Carr; Ellenor Lowenstein’s world-renowned gastronomical Corner Book Shop (which was not on a corner); and the Abbey Bookshop, the last of the Fourth Avenue bookstores to close its doors. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, and television are many of the reasons for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens of the people who bought, sold, collected, and breathed in its rare, bibliodiferous air, it lives again.