Books On Books
Black cloth with gilt decoration and lettering; both dj and book in near fine condition. VG/VG
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