Propitious Esculents
Why are so many cookbooks devoted to the humble potato?  American cuisine revolves around a mere handful of varieties, which most of us consume in the guise of potato chips, french fries, hash browns, mashed or baked potatoes.

What else is there?  Why the need for all those cookbooks?  And who the heck is buying them?  Is there some sort of underground Vary Your Potato Intake movement of which I'm unaware?  Should I be concerned that I'm not ingesting enough tattie scones or boxty pancakes or bryndzové halušky?  

And why it is it that most folks who collect potato cookbooks seem to stop there? The humble tater, as even the most cursory review of the published literature will suggest, has so much more to offer....

1149157734.jpg
Domesticated for over eight thousand years, documented in over 5000 varieties, cultivated across a wide range of climates and soil conditions, Solanum tuberosum is the world's fourth most important food crop.  It's also much beloved by devotees of aquavit.

But if all most book collectors collect about potatoes is cookbooks, a large part of this versatile veggie's story is being overlooked. That's because few cookbooks delve into the potato's long and complicated history.  

How many book collectors, for example, are aware of Engels' declaration that cultivation of the humble potato was every bit as historically revolutionary as the production of iron?  That distribution of the potato impacted, among other things, the growth of railroads?That the potato once was considered a delicacy by Chinese royalty (and that China itself is now the world's largest producer of spuds)? 

Next time a tater cookbook catches your eye, you might want to see if there are any spud histories nearby to give that cookbook some context....
book collecting, book collector, book history, books, home library, private library
Buying Up Ancient Bibles
This from yesterday's New York Times: Steve Green, the 46-year-old president of Hobby Lobby, is buying up bibles with the idea of creating a museum in Dallas...

The Green collection aims to be one of a kind. Other Bible collections in the United States, including one at the American Bible Society in Manhattan, generally intend to inspire readership, said Dr. Scott Carroll, who began advising Mr. Green about six months ago. "Our goal is to inspire people with the story of the Bible and its history."
bible collecting, bible collector, bible museum, hobby lobby, new york times, rare bible, steve green
The FB&C June Contest
If you like solving riddles, stop by our Facebook page and post your guess to the following before Saturday, 8 p.m. EST...

I am a book.
I was expurgated in the 1950s.
I was adapted to film in the 1960s.
I was exhibited as a Book of the Century in the 1990s.
I was lusted after in the 2000s.
Who am I?

Not already a Friend on Facebook? Come on by!
book contest, book riddle, facebook friend
Want to buy a wildly popular bookstore?
I almost choked on my breakfast bar this morning when I read that Washington D.C.'s beloved Politics and Prose bookstore is up for sale. The 26-year-old shop's owners are aging and say they just don't have the energy they used to.

I'm sure the news is sending tremors across the book-loving nation's capital. Politics and Prose is the place to go to soak in that independent bookstore experience ... to find items selected by human touch rather than just sales charts. It's the place to go to meet authors of all kinds of books who see the store as a must-visit destination. It's the place to go when you want to turn your brain on full power ... to mingle with staff and fellow shoppers who truly love books. Like many Washingtonians, my life is enriched every time I enter the store. Even the Washington Post described it as "iconic." 

If you know anyone who is looking to buy a wildly popular bookstore, Politics and Prose is available. I can't speak to its balance sheet or offer financial advice, but an entire city hopes the right kind of buyer steps forward to save one of Washington's most monumental sites.


Politics and Prose, Washington D.C. bookstores
What Else Do You Collect?
This fun little Smart Set article about business cards reminded me that I collected business cards for a year or two when I was a kid. I also collected rocks, stamps, stickers, super balls, and inkwells at one time or another. Werner Muensterberger might call me compulsive, and I am certainly a 'collector.' Today I'm posing a question to our readers: what do you collect (aside from books or manuscripts)?
business cards, collecting, collector, smart set, werner muensterberger
The Best Bookstores in the World

Jonathan Shipley

Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer living in Seattle. He’s written for the Los Angeles Times, Gather Journal, Uppercase, and many other publications.

From Brussels to Los Angeles, London to Kyoyo, spectacular, they are.

Bookstore.jpg
bookstore
Collecting Self-Published Authors
If one were to survey a very large and random group of book collectors, I strongly suspect that not a single one of them would fess up to collecting self-published authors.  Scott McKenzie penned an interesting rant on Slushpile a few years back which suggests why this is so:

You remember Bobby? That weird kid in high school who went out of his way to wear plaid pants, day-glo sneakers, a green mohawk, maybe a little goth makeup, and sucked on a pacifier all day? Bobby spent more time planning his anti-conformity outfit (because, "you know, he just does his own thing, he's such an individual") every morning than Jenny the Cheerleader dedicated to her hair. But then he always bitched and moaned about how Pam the Prom Queen ignored him. Some self-published authors are the same way. They act like idiots and then wonder why they face such disdain....

ppp.00271.008.jpg
McKenzie's point was not that self-publishing in itself is necessarily a bad thing, merely that the editorial processes which exist in the "real" publishing world help save most authors from themselves.  That being said, the sheer number of books that have been self-published over the centuries almost guarantees that many advanced book collectors have not a few self-published volumes on their shelves: think Atwood, Blake, Proust, Whitman...the list actually is quite lengthy.

The more interesting question is not do book collectors have the occasional self-published title on their shelves, but do any of us go out of our way to collect such titles in the same diligent, methodical way that we collect Shakespeare or hypermodern firsts or fine press or whatever it is that rings our bells.

Scholars are quite fond of extensive, well-considered book collections that tell them something they did not know previously.  What would an extensive, well-considered collection of self-published authors tell future scholars about the state of publishing, the distribution and reception of texts, etc., in this Late Age of Print, awash as we are with print-on-demand and other technologies that make it easier (and less expensive) than ever to self-publish...?
book collecting, book collector, book history, books, home library, private library
London International Antiquarian Book Fair
Alas, we're not in London for the Olympia fair, but we can take a look at the available treasures nonetheless. The fair opened late today and runs through Saturday.

281.jpg
From Peter Harrington, a second folio of Shakespeare bound in
red goatskin by Riviere & Son in the nineteenth century. £235,000

293.jpg
From Jonkers Rare Books, twelve issues of the Strand
Magazine, featuring the original Sherlock Holmes stories. £6000

297.jpg
From Jonkers Rare Books, an original manuscript of a Charles Dickens
story, bound with related correspondence in red morocco. £45,000


277.jpg
From Jonathan Potter, a large-scale map
of eighteenth-century London. £5000

289.jpg
From Jonkers Rare Books, a two-page autograph letter from George
Orwell to a friend, written while researching his book, Down and Out in
Paris and London (read more in June's auction report). £12,500


antiquarian book fair, autograph letter, charles dickens manuscript, george orwell, jonathan potter, jonkers rare books, london book fair, olympia fair, peter harrington, second folio, shakespeare, sherlock holmes, westminster map
Inside the Folger's vault...
Tom Post, managing editor of Forbes, took a tour of the Folger Shakespeare Library's vault. Read his report on the folios he fondled. Who's not jealous?
Tom Post, first folio, folger shakespeare, forbes magazine, william shakespeare
Lady Skipwith's Library
skip.jpg
Back in March, the Library of Virginia presented the 2010 Virginia Women in History awards. They honored eight women who have made important contributions to Virginia and the nation. One neat pick this year was Jean Miller Skipwith (1748-1826), described as "an avid book collector and amateur botanist." She assembled one the largest libraries owned by an American woman in her time. Her 800 volumes included travel and history, novels, cookbooks, encyclopedias, essay collections, and children's literature.

The collection also included gardening and botanical books. She collected specimens and made botanical notes that are still of interest and use to horticultural historians. Pictured here is her manuscript list of wildflowers growing in her garden (now at the Swem Library, College of William and Mary).

My thanks to 'How I Got Started' columnist Ellen Firsching Brown for sending along this interesting news!

botanist, botany, college of william and mary, early book collector, ellen firsching brown, female book collector, gardening books, gardening library, jean miller skipwith, lady skipwith, library of virginia, swem library, virginia women in history, women's history