The L.A. Times Festival of Books yielded a bonanza for the woman who came to the Southern California Chapter of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America’s Rare Book Round-Up booth for a free appraisal.A book the woman bought for a dollar at a garage sale was worth $6,000. Suffice it to say, she plotzed when informed.A metaphysical ambulance is routinely parked nearby to handle such situations. Treated for acute swoon, she recovered fully and danced a jig all the way home.The volume she presented for appraisal was A Western Trip by Carl E. Schmidt (1904). A lavishly produced book bound...
Collecting Nurse Jackie’s Patron Saint: The Urtext of Memoirs
Suddenly, It's St. Augustine!That exclamation is neither a message from the Florida Board of Tourism nor the title of a wacky, new sit-com about a talking St. Bernard with identity issues.It is, rather, notice that recently, within the space of three days, I was struck by a cluster of references to the man who wrote the first memoir extant, the father of all autobiographies, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. First, I'm skimming through The Erotic Revolution by Lawrence Lipton (1965), "An Affirmative View of the New Morality," i.e. the sexual revolution of the Sixties, and my eye falls upon a single...
Viva Las Vegas! Bauman Rare Books Needs Your Help
Bauman Rare Books - Las Vegas Are the dice of life rolling snake eyes? Are you tired of your ho-hum job? Are you ready for adventure? Consider a job in the exciting, fast-paced and fabulous world of rare book selling in Las Vegas, where you'll deal in the rarest of the rare while lounging at poolside, daquiri in hand while nubile maidens with pulchritude a'plenty fan you with palm fronds and keep that cocktail fresh and you, frisky.You'll personally deliver fabulous first editions to clients, carried on a litter and escorted by a train of glamorous showgirls swathed in oh-so-revealing...
Yoko Ono Collects Rare Books: The Book Patrol Interview
I had lunch with Yoko Ono during the 2010 New York Antiquarian Book Fair.That’s a sentence I figured I’d have about as much chance of writing as, “I accept the nomination of my party for President of the United States,” but with less probability of actual realization.At the Fair on Saturday, I noticed Yoko Ono quietly walking the aisles. I thought, I must talk to her about rare books. And immediately I thought, Gertz, you do not have the nuts to approach her. And I was right.Forty minutes later I was starving and, anxious to have my wallet gutted, walked...
The World’s Most Expensive Inexpensive Bible
Our friend, Maurice Earp, bookslinger at Blackwell Rare Books in the U.K., enjoys sending reports of bizarrely priced books found on Advanced Book Exchange (ABE). I love receiving them yet I never know whether to laugh, cry, or call the book police. This is a job for Tombstone's favorite sheriff, Wyatt Earp, with whom Maurice shares nothing but surname and sharp aim.Today’s episode of Have You Lost Your Mind? concerns the the large-print edition of the Life Application Study Bible NLT, published by Tyndale House in 2009.On ABE-UK, there are seven copies being offered by the same dealer, Beagle Books,...