With wind chills well below freezing, it is still off-season on Cape Cod, but you'd never have known it by the splendid turnout at the Sandwich Public Library Sunday afternoon for the latest in a series of author appearances and events centered around a comprehensive celebration of the book.
Inspired by the Big Read program introduced a couple years ago by Dana Gioia, the director of the National Endowment for the Arts (and a subject of a recent column I wrote for Fine Books & Collections), the initiative in Sandwich has improvised by focusing on more than one book for community reading, and organized a continuing program centered around one basic theme, in this instance books that have touched people's lives.
Regardless of how stressed the economy may be at any given time, truly great books and manuscripts will always find a new home, and rarely will they be at fire-sale prices. That is an axiom I learned when I began my research for "A Gentle Madness" back in the 1980s, and it holds true to this day. The quote that lingers in my mind is from Stephen Massey, at the time of our first interview in 1991 head of the rare books division of Christie's in New York, these days an independent appraiser who appears often on the Antiques Road Show.
The context of our discussion was the mysterious collector Haven O'More (see chapter 6 of AGM, "To Have and to Have No More"), and the sale in 1978 of a Gutenberg Bible. O'More had come by the auction gallery one day unannounced before the auction to look at the book, and there were some heated words exchanged between the two, with Massey saying, finally, that if O'More wanted to see it, he'd have to make an appointment. "I wasn't worried about losing him," Massey told me with great candor--and he was speaking at this point about bibliophiles and bibliomanes in general--"because if the book's good enough, they will always call back--they will crawl--if they really want the book."
The context of our discussion was the mysterious collector Haven O'More (see chapter 6 of AGM, "To Have and to Have No More"), and the sale in 1978 of a Gutenberg Bible. O'More had come by the auction gallery one day unannounced before the auction to look at the book, and there were some heated words exchanged between the two, with Massey saying, finally, that if O'More wanted to see it, he'd have to make an appointment. "I wasn't worried about losing him," Massey told me with great candor--and he was speaking at this point about bibliophiles and bibliomanes in general--"because if the book's good enough, they will always call back--they will crawl--if they really want the book."
The last day of Codex began with a memorable talk by the legendary British book artist Ron King. Ron showed slides of his work dating back to the 1950s. He got a long standing ovation; his wife, Willow, a sculptor, later said she was afraid he might start crying. He didn't, but it was a very moving experience to be in that audience and to contemplate this man's artistic genius. Like Picasso's, his mind is constantly moving forward to the point where now he is no longer making books per se, but carving seven-foot-high, book-like forms out of wood.
There was a different feeling the last day of the fair, a sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose. Though many librarians and collectors said they felt restrained by incipient budget cuts, they looked intently, and made wish lists. Those who could buy, bought. I heard that Stanford's special collections curator, Roberto Trujillo, spent $30,000, but I think he was the exception. Still, everyone agreed that the overall level of artistry was even greater this year than in 2007.
There was a different feeling the last day of the fair, a sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose. Though many librarians and collectors said they felt restrained by incipient budget cuts, they looked intently, and made wish lists. Those who could buy, bought. I heard that Stanford's special collections curator, Roberto Trujillo, spent $30,000, but I think he was the exception. Still, everyone agreed that the overall level of artistry was even greater this year than in 2007.
I have been overwhelmed by the impact of my first CODEX experience, the fine press event in California this week. Walking around this fair is like having Beethoven and Picasso and Proust sitting behind tables of their work, all willing to show you how they do it. There are some California artists who work for Booklyn who are so brilliantly, darkly, and insanely funny that I started crying from laughing so hard. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are some artists whose work is so highly serious, so deeply civilized, so cultured, so refined, one can hardly bear to talk to them.
Fine Books & Collections is pleased to welcome readers to what will be known simply as the "Fine Books Blog." Ian Kahn, owner of Lux Mentis, Booksellers, came to us with this idea a couple of months back. Ian is one of the enthusiastic young booksellers involved in the trade, and he's not only book-savvy, he's Internet-savvy as well (wait until you see the Facebook page he's created for us, but that's another story).
His notion was to have many voices participating in this blog. We liked that idea, since collecting and bookselling can often seem a very solitary activity. Our efforts online are very simply to build a community, and the Fine Books Blog, we hope, will contribute greatly to that effort. So, welcome, to the Fine Books Blog.
And now, Ian Kahn...
At yesterday's ceremony in New York to honor the heroic acts of Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III and the crew of U. S. Airways Flight 1549, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented each member of the team with a key to the city, and in a light footnote to the festivities, gave "Sully" a copy of the book he had lost in the crash landing of his A320 Airbus on the Hudson River on Jan. 15.
For those of us who care about these things--the library in California that had loaned the waterlogged book to Sullenberger had declined, for privacy reasons, to identify the title--the book turns out, in a delightful twist of aptness, to be "Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability" (Ashgate Publishing, paperback, $29.95, hardcover, $39). According to the dustjacket blurb, the author, Sidney Dekker, is a Professor of Human Factors and System Safety, and Director of Research at Lund University School of Aviation in Sweden.
For those of us who care about these things--the library in California that had loaned the waterlogged book to Sullenberger had declined, for privacy reasons, to identify the title--the book turns out, in a delightful twist of aptness, to be "Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability" (Ashgate Publishing, paperback, $29.95, hardcover, $39). According to the dustjacket blurb, the author, Sidney Dekker, is a Professor of Human Factors and System Safety, and Director of Research at Lund University School of Aviation in Sweden.I hope you all take a few minutes to read my tribute to Abe Lincoln in the February issue of Fine Books & Collections, just issued in time to observe the bicentennial of the sixteenth president's birth, which has occasioned the release of numerous new books, many of them for children. But I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Feb. 12 is also the two hundredth birthday of Charles Darwin, and that he, too, is the subject of numerous new books and biographies being published to recognize his manifold accomplishments.
Two I heartily recommend:
The community of bibliophiles lost a wonderful friend over the weekend with the passing in Columbus, Ohio, of Ronald L. "Ron" Ravneberg, 60, one of the founders in 2000 of the Aldus Society, and a past president of the group. (See his obituary in the Columbus Dispatch.)
Ron was a great champion of books and of promoting contact and communication among book people everywhere. Members of FABS (Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies) will recall with pleasure Ron's dedication to the group and to its principle of solidarity among book people. I first met Ron in 2004 when he invited the book artist and bookmaker Barry Moser and myself out to Columbus to participate in the Celebration of the Book, organized by Aldus and held in July of that year at Ohio State University. It was a most memorable event.
