Author: Marvin Mondlin
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 9780786716524
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The city has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of 14th Street in Manhattan, mostly 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 a bibliophiles' paradise. They called it the New York Booksellers' Row, or, more commonly, Book Row. It's an American story, the story that this richly anecdotal historical memoir amiably tells: as American as the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes in twelve miles of space. It's a story cast with colorful characters: like the horse-betting, poker-playing go-getter and 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; gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his legendary shrewd wife Jenny. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, television-the reasons are many for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens upon dozens of the book people who bought, sold, and collected there, it lives again.
Book Row
Author: Marvin Mondlin
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 9780786716524
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The city has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of 14th Street in Manhattan, mostly 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 a bibliophiles' paradise. They called it the New York Booksellers' Row, or, more commonly, Book Row. It's an American story, the story that this richly anecdotal historical memoir amiably tells: as American as the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes in twelve miles of space. It's a story cast with colorful characters: like the horse-betting, poker-playing go-getter and 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; gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his legendary shrewd wife Jenny. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, television-the reasons are many for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens upon dozens of the book people who bought, sold, and collected there, it lives again.
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 9780786716524
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The city has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of 14th Street in Manhattan, mostly 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 a bibliophiles' paradise. They called it the New York Booksellers' Row, or, more commonly, Book Row. It's an American story, the story that this richly anecdotal historical memoir amiably tells: as American as the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes in twelve miles of space. It's a story cast with colorful characters: like the horse-betting, poker-playing go-getter and 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; gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his legendary shrewd wife Jenny. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, television-the reasons are many for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens upon dozens of the book people who bought, sold, and collected there, it lives again.
The Last Bookseller
Author: Gary Goodman
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966915
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
A wry, unvarnished chronicle of a career in the rare book trade during its last Golden Age When Gary Goodman wandered into a run-down, used-book shop that was going out of business in East St. Paul in 1982, he had no idea the visit would change his life. He walked in as a psychiatric counselor and walked out as the store’s new owner. In The Last Bookseller Goodman describes his sometimes desperate, sometimes hilarious career as a used and rare book dealer in Minnesota—the early struggles, the travels to estate sales and book fairs, the remarkable finds, and the bibliophiles, forgers, book thieves, and book hoarders he met along the way. Here we meet the infamous St. Paul Book Bandit, Stephen Blumberg, who stole 24,000 rare books worth more than fifty million dollars; John Jenkins, the Texas rare book dealer who (probably) was murdered while standing in the middle of the Colorado River; and the eccentric Melvin McCosh, who filled his dilapidated Lake Minnetonka mansion with half a million books. In 1990, with a couple of partners, Goodman opened St. Croix Antiquarian Books in Stillwater, one of the Twin Cities region’s most venerable bookshops until it closed in 2017. This store became so successful and inspired so many other booksellers to move to town that Richard Booth, founder of the “book town” movement in Hay-on-Wye in Wales, declared Stillwater the First Book Town in North America. The internet changed the book business forever, and Goodman details how, after 2000, the internet made stores like his obsolete. In the 1990s, the Twin Cities had nearly fifty secondhand bookshops; today, there are fewer than ten. As both a memoir and a history of booksellers and book scouts, criminals and collectors, The Last Bookseller offers an ultimately poignant account of the used and rare book business during its final Golden Age.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966915
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
A wry, unvarnished chronicle of a career in the rare book trade during its last Golden Age When Gary Goodman wandered into a run-down, used-book shop that was going out of business in East St. Paul in 1982, he had no idea the visit would change his life. He walked in as a psychiatric counselor and walked out as the store’s new owner. In The Last Bookseller Goodman describes his sometimes desperate, sometimes hilarious career as a used and rare book dealer in Minnesota—the early struggles, the travels to estate sales and book fairs, the remarkable finds, and the bibliophiles, forgers, book thieves, and book hoarders he met along the way. Here we meet the infamous St. Paul Book Bandit, Stephen Blumberg, who stole 24,000 rare books worth more than fifty million dollars; John Jenkins, the Texas rare book dealer who (probably) was murdered while standing in the middle of the Colorado River; and the eccentric Melvin McCosh, who filled his dilapidated Lake Minnetonka mansion with half a million books. In 1990, with a couple of partners, Goodman opened St. Croix Antiquarian Books in Stillwater, one of the Twin Cities region’s most venerable bookshops until it closed in 2017. This store became so successful and inspired so many other booksellers to move to town that Richard Booth, founder of the “book town” movement in Hay-on-Wye in Wales, declared Stillwater the First Book Town in North America. The internet changed the book business forever, and Goodman details how, after 2000, the internet made stores like his obsolete. In the 1990s, the Twin Cities had nearly fifty secondhand bookshops; today, there are fewer than ten. As both a memoir and a history of booksellers and book scouts, criminals and collectors, The Last Bookseller offers an ultimately poignant account of the used and rare book business during its final Golden Age.
Old Books, Rare Friends
Author: Madeline B. Stern
Publisher: Main Street Books
ISBN: 0307874532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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.
Publisher: Main Street Books
ISBN: 0307874532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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.
A Winter in Italy, in a Series of Letters to a Friend
Author: Mrs. Ashton Yates
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Books and Book-collectors
Author: John Carter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Book collecting
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Book collecting
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
How to Buy Rare Books
Author: William Rees-Mogg
Publisher: Oxford : Phaidon, Christie's
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Publisher: Oxford : Phaidon, Christie's
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Forty Years Among the Old Booksellers of Philadelphia
Author: William Brotherhead
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Old Books in the Old World
Author: Leona Rostenberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
This is a charming account of postwar book buying abroad by the "Holmes and Watson" of antiquarian books. After the war, Americans went abroad for European culture, food and art, but Rostenberg and Stern, the Grand Dames of the antiquarian bookselling world, went to Europe to buy old books. Old Books in the Old World glows with the details of their book-buying trips abroad between 1947 and 1957. Filled with tales of steamships, cobblestone streets and dusty rare bookshops, this illustrated journal draws from original diaries and letters and contemporary recollections. Full of history and bookish tales, this personal insight into postwar Europe and the antiquarian book-selling scene will be of interest both to the seasoned bibliophile and to the casual reader.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
This is a charming account of postwar book buying abroad by the "Holmes and Watson" of antiquarian books. After the war, Americans went abroad for European culture, food and art, but Rostenberg and Stern, the Grand Dames of the antiquarian bookselling world, went to Europe to buy old books. Old Books in the Old World glows with the details of their book-buying trips abroad between 1947 and 1957. Filled with tales of steamships, cobblestone streets and dusty rare bookshops, this illustrated journal draws from original diaries and letters and contemporary recollections. Full of history and bookish tales, this personal insight into postwar Europe and the antiquarian book-selling scene will be of interest both to the seasoned bibliophile and to the casual reader.
This is Not the End of the Book
Author: Jean-Claude Carrière
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099552450
Category : Books and reading
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered' Umberto Eco These days it is impossible to get away from discussions of whether the book will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting ignorance of the future. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carri�re and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air. This thought-provoking book takes the form of a conversation in which Carri�re and Eco discuss everything from how to define the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse. En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carri�re is most sad to have sold. And while, as Carri�re says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive. 'A storming book. The next best thing to sitting in Umberto Eco's living room after dinner; a dream collection of lucid and fascinating discussions' Nick Harkaway 'Hurrah for philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco and playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carri�re, who have come together to praise the medium... Fans of Eco and Carri�re will be charmed' Time Out 'An entertainingly free-range dialogue about writing past, present and future' Independent
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099552450
Category : Books and reading
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered' Umberto Eco These days it is impossible to get away from discussions of whether the book will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting ignorance of the future. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carri�re and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air. This thought-provoking book takes the form of a conversation in which Carri�re and Eco discuss everything from how to define the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse. En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carri�re is most sad to have sold. And while, as Carri�re says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive. 'A storming book. The next best thing to sitting in Umberto Eco's living room after dinner; a dream collection of lucid and fascinating discussions' Nick Harkaway 'Hurrah for philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco and playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carri�re, who have come together to praise the medium... Fans of Eco and Carri�re will be charmed' Time Out 'An entertainingly free-range dialogue about writing past, present and future' Independent
Mea Culpa & The Life and Work of Semmelweis
Author: Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description