There was a short post yesterday in the Good Questions section of the Apartment Therapy New York website titled How To Start a Book Collection?The post was from an interior designer whose client has a new apartment with a lot of bookshelves and no books. There were already over 100 comments to the article when I came upon it and most were less than the kind.Their goal: A book collection that is "based on his taste, but also be a great collection of classics and aesthetically as pleasing as the work that's gone into the rest of the apartment."A fair...
Another Amazon Outgrowth: The Penny Pinchers
It is no secret that Amazon and has single-handedly corrupted the entire bookselling industry.We have lost 50% of our open bookshops since the birth of online booksellingand it almost impossible for the 50% who are left to be price competitive.Interestingly enough, while the number of open bookshops have been cut in half the amount of people calling themselves booksellers has skyrocketed.Within this tornado little cottage industries have popped up trying to capitalize on the Amazon effect.There is the whole Scoutpal culture where a PDA device and the Amazon database combine to remove much of human element from handling and pricing...
Fine Presses and the Bookseller
That is the title of the article I wrote for the new issue of Amphora the publication of the Alcuin Society.For those unfamiliar with the Alcuin Society it is a "voluntary association of people who care about the past, present and future of fine books" based in Vancouver, British Columbia whose two main goals "are to promote a wider appreciation of books and reading and to support excellence in book design and production."Hard not to support that.This particular issue is also the inaugural issue in what will be an ongoing series featuring original wood engravings. This issue features artist Jim...
The Heritage Effect. The Book Trade Waits
It has been a long time since a funeral was held at 8540 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. It used to be the home of the Cunningham & O'Connor Mortuary. It was where services were held for such Hollywood legends as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby and Spencer Tracy.Tomorrow something else is being laid to rest. The legendary Heritage Book Shop. After 44 years in the book business, the last 25 of which were at the old funeral home on Melrose, Ben and Lou Weinstein are cashing out.It doesn't matter if the closure is related to Lou getting tired...
Gotham Breathing
Robert Schuster's piece in the Village Voice "The Gotham Book Mart's Final Chapter" confirms that we haven't heard the last of it."Something's cooking," and "important things happening" is what people in the know are saying."Don't issue a death certificate just yet" says Schuster.Why is this not surprising? The more you talked to veteran booksellers after the auction shenanigans the more you got the sense that this was not the end. There were still too many unanswered questions for it to be over. At minimum, the sheer carnival of the auction guaranteed a second act.The auctioner Eliot Millman sums up the...