Books On Books
One cozy, funny year with a Scottish used bookseller as he stays afloat while managing staff, customers, and life in the village of Wigtown. This endearing world is the next best thing to visiting your favorite bookstore (shop cat not included).
Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland's largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss. Shaun copes with eccentric staff, tallies up the day's orders, drives to distant houses to buy private libraries, and meditates on the nature of life and independent bookstores ("There really does seem to be a serendipity about bookshops, not just with finding books you never knew existed, or that you've been searching for, but with people too."). Confessions of a Bookseller is a warm and welcome memoir of a life in books. It's for any reader looking for the kind of friend you meet in a bookstore.
Two-page introduction followed by 12 full page woodcuts. Mardersteig's commentary is printed on each facing page. One leaf of contents. One of 300 copies printed at the Officina Bodoni. Masereel's woodcuts (which first appeared in the 1929 "Operation of a Hand Press") are printed from the original woodblocks.
Verona: Officina Bodoni, 1973.Scarce and near fine.
A Kirkus Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2024
The first history of the notebook, a simple invention that changed the way the world thinks.
We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did these indispensable implements come from? How did they revolutionize our lives? And how can using a notebook help change the way you think? In this wide-ranging history, Roland Allen reveals how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking. He tells the notebook stories of Leonardo and Frida Kahlo, Isaac Newton and Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James; shows how Darwin developed his theory of evolution in tiny pocket books and Agatha Christie plotted a hundred murders in scrappy exercise books; and introduces a host of cooks, kings, sailors, fishermen, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers, and mathematicians, all of whom used their notebooks as a space to think--and in doing so, shaped the modern world.
In an age of AI and digital overload, the humble notebook is more relevant than ever. Allen shows how bullet points can combat ADHD, journals can ease PTSD, and patient diaries soften the trauma of reawakening from coma. The everyday act of moving a pen across paper, he finds, can have profound consequences, changing the way we think and feel: making us more creative, more productive--and maybe even happier.
San Francisco: Scarab Press, 1980. Limited to 2000 copies; dust jacket in protective cover; spine toned; small tears at top edge and bottom front corner; blue cloth spine over illustrated paper boards; corners bumped; 1 folded page announcement for book laid in front; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/G
Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach (July 22, 1876 – July 1, 1952) was an American collector, scholar, and seller of rare books and manuscripts. In London, where he frequently attended the auctions at Sotheby's, he was known as "The Terror of the Auction Room." In Paris, he was called “Le Napoléon des Livres”, which translates to “The Napoleon of Books." Many others referred to him as “Dr. R.”, a “Robber Baron” and “the Greatest Bookdealer in the World”. [Wikipedia]
Rosenbach is credited with popularizing the collecting of American literature at a time when only European literature was considered collectible. He also advanced the idea of book collecting as a means of investment and published several articles and books to increase interest in rare books and manuscripts. [Wikipedia]
This comprehensive biography, published in 1960 by World Publishing Company in Cleveland, is a must for anyone interested in rare books and book collecting. Edition limited to 250 copies, of which this is number 223; signed by authors, Edwin Wolf 2nd, and John F. Fleming. Gray slipcase; black cloth spine over dark red cloth with gilt lettering; binding tight; text pristine. VG/VG
"As a bookseller, I loved Shelf Life for the chance to peer behind the curtain of Diwan, Nadia Wassef's Egyptian bookstore--the way that the personal is inextricable from the professional, the way that failure and success are often lovers, the relationship between neighborhoods and books and life. Nadia's story is for every business owner who has ever jumped without a net, and for every reader who has found solace in the aisles of a bookstore."
--Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here
--Jenny Lawson, author of Broken (in the best possible way)
The warm and winning story of opening a modern bookstore where there were none, Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller recounts Nadia Wassef's troubles and triumphs as a founder and manager of Cairo-based Diwan The streets of Cairo make strange music. The echoing calls to prayer; the raging insults hurled between drivers; the steady crescendo of horns honking; the shouts of street vendors; the television sets and radios blaring from every sidewalk. Nadia Wassef knows this song by heart. In 2002, with her sister, Hind, and their friend, Nihal, she founded Diwan, a fiercely independent bookstore. They were three young women with no business degrees, no formal training, and nothing to lose. At the time, nothing like Diwan existed in Egypt. Culture was languishing under government mismanagement, and books were considered a luxury, not a necessity. Ten years later, Diwan had become a rousing success, with ten locations, 150 employees, and a fervent fan base. Frank, fresh, and very funny, Nadia Wassef's memoir tells the story of this journey. Its eclectic cast of characters features Diwan's impassioned regulars, like the demanding Dr. Medhat; Samir, the driver with CEO aspirations; meditative and mythical Nihal; silent but deadly Hind; dictatorial and exacting Nadia, a self-proclaimed bitch to work with--and the many people, mostly men, who said Diwan would never work. Shelf Life is a portrait of a country hurtling toward revolution, a feminist rallying cry, and an unapologetic crash course in running a business under the law of entropy. Above all, it is a celebration of the power of words to bring us home.