The following originally appeared last week in Fine Books & Collections magazine. The Update that follows appears here for the first time, exclusive to Book Patrol.In a recent column, I discussed deflation coming to the rare book world, with particular emphasis on the auction houses.In my mailbox this morning comes news that Bloomsbury, the auction house that has been leading the market to realistic reserves, has now made it official with their first No Reserve Bibliophile Sale.The sale features property from Heritage Book Shop, Colonial Williamsburg andThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will occur this Tuesday, June 30, at 2PM...
Deflation Comes to the Rare Book Market (Cheers! Boos!)
The following two-part post recently appeared in Fine Books & Collections magazine. Due to its importance to the rare book community, the C in C of Book Patrol asked that I reprint it here. Part Two will appear tomorrow (June 7th) with an update exclusive to Book Patrol.The title of Americana Exchange's latest analysis of the book auction market succinctly sums up what those in the trade have been feeling for quite some time - A Market Under Pressure. It is the next logical step in the democratization of the rare book business that began with the introduction of the...
Michael Jackson “Extremely Well-Read,” Had 10,000 Books
The King of Pop a dweeby book lovin’ geek?Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.In the midst of a lengthy interview in the L.A. Weekly, Jackson attorney Bob Sanger revealed the following as his last of three golden attributes that defined the Gloved One.“Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville...
"Twitterature" Has Book World Atwitter
Two nineteen year old freshmen at the University of Chicago have scored a publishing deal for their book, Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less, to be released later this year by Penguin.The students, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman, “had an epiphany,” they declare on their website. "What, we asked, are the grandest ventures of our or any generation? And what, to give this a bit more focus, best expresses the souls of 21st century Americans?"Their answer: that the two most important platforms of expression for their generation were literature and Twitter, and so they...
High School Locker Is Banned Books Library
A U.S. student at an unnamed private school has created an illegal lending library in the locker adjacent to hers to serve the interest of fellow students in books banned from the student curriculum by zealous school officials.Anxious that she may be subverting her future success in life by current criminal activity and seeking guidance from the wise, she posted her dilemma on Yahoo! Answers:“Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?“Let me explain.“I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list...