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.

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...

As you may have noticed, great things are afoot at Fine Books and Collections. I am very pleased to introduce the cadre of bloggers who will now be posting here. The intent is that all FB& C bloggers will post one or two times each week, which should result in a steady flow of interesting bits from many different areas of the book world. Those helping launch this newly transitioned group blog will be:

• Exile Bibliophile, the ever mysterious Special Collections librarian
• Scott Brown, the original voice of this blog and owner of Eureka Books
• Brian Cassidy of Brian Cassidy, Bookseller fame.
• Jeremy Dibbell of Philobiblos
• Stephen Gertz of David Brass Rare Books
• Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis, Booksellers (that would be me...)
• Michael Leiberman who runs one of Seattle's great shops, Wessel and Lieberman
• Ann Loftin, editor of Fine Books and Collections
• Chris Lowenstein of the wonderfully named, Book Hunter's Holiday
• Forrest Proper, proprietor of Joslin Hall Rare Books

This great collection of bloggers is very excited to be involved in this project. Several of us are in San Francisco for the ABAA Book Fair this weekend...so I can safely predict some postings from the front lines of the first major fair of this economically complex season. This sort of group blog is a new thing for most of us, and we appreciate your support and feedback while the project evolves. Change makes for interesting times. Personally, I side with G.B. Shaw, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." I think we have a great cadre of unreasonable men and women here...this should be great fun.

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.

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.