The Berkshire WordFest gets underway next weekend, July 23-25. This is the inaugural WordFest, what is hoped to be a celebration of words and ideas set in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. It will be held at The Mount, Edith Wharton's historic home and gardens (an absolutely lovely place), in Lenox, Mass. The festival opens Friday evening with a talk by Francine Prose, followed by two days of literary discussions, interviews, readings, signings, and more. Some of the authors in the weekend's schedule are Garrison Keillor, Kurt Andersen, Roy Blount, Jr., Simon Winchester, and Susan Orlean. (For a longer preview of WordFest, see the Albany
Times-Union.) Several exhibits will also be open for viewing, including Edith Wharton and the First World War and Dramatic License: Wharton on Stage and Screen (see image at left). Having fought its way back from foreclosure, The Mount seems to have a new lease on life and will make a perfect home for WordFest.
We all collect according to our interests and circumstances. And we often begin our book collecting adventures with very little thought as to what exactly a new-found collecting interest might eventually entail in terms of time, money and effort expended.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Some of the world's greatest book collections have begun serendipitously and proceeded willy-nilly for a number of years. At some point, though, virtually every book collector realizes that he or she will not live forever. Thus it is that book collectors often devise some sort of plan to better utilize their remaining years and resources.
These plans run the gamut from very simple to very complex. The best of these can easily hold their own against the collection development plans of professional librarians. It sometimes dawns upon book collectors who have reached this point that they no longer are collecting for themselves...they are collecting for posterity.
Of course, a few especially thoughtful collectors may actually begin their book collecting adventures with a plan firmly in place. More frequently, though, most book collectors simply...begin. Especially for book collecting that is generated by a response to something "in the news," it may be years before any sort of plan suggests itself.
Consider the BP oil spill. How does one build a meaningful book collection about this event, given that the impact of the event may not be fully known for decades?
Perhaps one starts by adding to one's bookshelves titles about oil spills in general (mindful that such titles have been published for both adult and juvenile markets). One may discover that oil companies (and their suppliers) have published a great many titles that anticipate the possibility of oil spills (response guides and the like) , and thus these also may be added to one's bookshelves. What else?
Biographies, autobiographies and histories of the major players (British Petroleum, Tony Hayward, etc.) would seem to be important for such a collection. As would material published in response to the event (Congressional hearings; leaflets, broadsides and other ephemeral printed material issued by activists in affected areas; etc.). [Because the Federal Government is committed to making the documents of its various agencies available electronically, one may have to print such documents oneself to add them to one's bookshelves.]
As time passes, one also may be able to add to one's shelves scientific analyses of the spill's impact on various environments, local economies and so forth; technical treatises on how well the technologies deployed in response to the spill did or did not work; memoirs of particular individuals affected by the spill (local fishermen, politicians, etc.); and so on and so on and so on.
But this event is still unfolding, and so book collectors who are collecting in response to this event may be forgiven for not yet knowing exactly where they are going, or where they may eventually end up. Whether they are collecting simply for themselves, or for posterity....
Fine Books Press, an imprint of FB&C magazine, recently published
Nick Basbanes' About the Author: Inside the Creative Process. Here's a glowing review from the July issue of the Midwest Book Review:
Well-done, Nick! About the Author is available in both a trade edition and a signed limited edition in the FB store.
Nicholas Basbanes was literary editor of the Worcester, Massachusetts Telegram & Gazette from 1978-1991, in which capacity he was able to interview hundreds of authors whose publicity tours took them through the city of Boston. In "About the Author: Inside the Creative Process", Basbanes draws upon his conversations with an immense diversity of literary greats ranging from Alfred Kazin, Arthur Miller, John Updike, and Toni Morrison, to Doris Lessing, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Simon and Alice Walker, to explore the motivations and processes that authors experience and utilize to create their novels, poetry, histories, and other literary works. A fascinating read from beginning to end, this 246-page compendium is as informed and informative as it is insightful and inspiring. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, "About the Author: Inside the Creative Process" is highly recommended reading and a seminal work for both academic and community library Literary Studies reference collections.
Well-done, Nick! About the Author is available in both a trade edition and a signed limited edition in the FB store.
There's an important article in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education by Jennifer Howard (follow her on Twitter at @JenHoward) about bibliography's place in today's academic culture. Good quotes here from David Vander Meulen and Michael Suarez, among others - Michael's quotes about theory vs. praxis are particularly useful, I think.
Howard also touches on some places that are doing very interesting things with bibliographic instruction: not just Rare Book School, but also Texas Tech (where bibliography is embedded in the English Department's curriculum), and Florida State, home of the three-year History of Text Technologies program.
I don't say this often, but I will for this one: read the whole thing.
Howard also touches on some places that are doing very interesting things with bibliographic instruction: not just Rare Book School, but also Texas Tech (where bibliography is embedded in the English Department's curriculum), and Florida State, home of the three-year History of Text Technologies program.
I don't say this often, but I will for this one: read the whole thing.
Recently I was browsing in the wonderful little Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck, New York, when some window dressing caught my eye (pun intended). Inside a lovely paper and stationery shop called Paper Trail was an exhibit of paper dresses and shoes. The shop happened to be closed at the time, so when I returned home, I went straight to my computer to research the shop and the exhibit. The exhibit is called Texture con Texture, and it features the work of Linda Filley and Ramon Lascano. Filley makes paper dresses and shoes, and Lascano makes conceptual book art and altered book art. Both are stunning.
The paper fashions were something I had never seen before, and I was quite taken with them. As examples, Filley's Bluebird dress and Shoe Boot are pictured here. I emailed her to ask more about it, and here is our Q&A.
RRB: How did you come up with the idea for paper dresses and shoes? I've seen paper jewelry before, but never anything like this!
LF: The dresses came about when Maureen and Serine [owners of Paper Trail] bought the forms to use for a holiday ornaments display. After the holidays they suggested weaving some paper through the forms which are made of wire. It all came so naturally to me. I have always loved fashion and wrapping gifts so the two finally met. That was 4 1/2 years ago and I have probably made about 20 dresses since. The shoes are a recent project. I made 1 each for Maureen and Serine this past holiday season and used them for the topping of their presents. Maureen then suggested I make some more and we could include them in the Spring show which was the second one Ramon and I have done at Paper Trail. The first show was called Fashion and Fiction.
RRB: How do you describe your art -- or yourself -- book art, book artist? paper designer?
LF: I guess I would describe myself as a paper artist. I have always loved to make something from nothing and make it as appealing as possible. The next best thing to making the dresses and shoes is the search for different material and to use it outside of its original intent, e.g. packaging material, odd little bits of ribbon from the store and the plastic mesh bags that onions come in.
RRB: What is your artist background?
LF: I am self-taught. I have been drawn most of my life to making visual stories out of different items whether it be window/table display for a store or just placing things picked up from a walk.
RRB: It's interesting to me that Paper Trail -- a retail paper & gift store -- is holding an art exhibition. How did this collaboration come about?
LF: Three years ago when Maureen and Serine moved Paper Trail from the back space to its current location, it gave them a new chance to expand the scope of the store beyond gifts and stationery. The room on your left when you first enter the store is a natural space for displaying art.
Paper couture, I like it. If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend a visit to Paper Trail. You can also see images from the exhibit online.
The paper fashions were something I had never seen before, and I was quite taken with them. As examples, Filley's Bluebird dress and Shoe Boot are pictured here. I emailed her to ask more about it, and here is our Q&A.
RRB: How did you come up with the idea for paper dresses and shoes? I've seen paper jewelry before, but never anything like this!
LF: The dresses came about when Maureen and Serine [owners of Paper Trail] bought the forms to use for a holiday ornaments display. After the holidays they suggested weaving some paper through the forms which are made of wire. It all came so naturally to me. I have always loved fashion and wrapping gifts so the two finally met. That was 4 1/2 years ago and I have probably made about 20 dresses since. The shoes are a recent project. I made 1 each for Maureen and Serine this past holiday season and used them for the topping of their presents. Maureen then suggested I make some more and we could include them in the Spring show which was the second one Ramon and I have done at Paper Trail. The first show was called Fashion and Fiction.
RRB: How do you describe your art -- or yourself -- book art, book artist? paper designer?
LF: I guess I would describe myself as a paper artist. I have always loved to make something from nothing and make it as appealing as possible. The next best thing to making the dresses and shoes is the search for different material and to use it outside of its original intent, e.g. packaging material, odd little bits of ribbon from the store and the plastic mesh bags that onions come in.
RRB: What is your artist background?
LF: I am self-taught. I have been drawn most of my life to making visual stories out of different items whether it be window/table display for a store or just placing things picked up from a walk.
RRB: It's interesting to me that Paper Trail -- a retail paper & gift store -- is holding an art exhibition. How did this collaboration come about?
LF: Three years ago when Maureen and Serine moved Paper Trail from the back space to its current location, it gave them a new chance to expand the scope of the store beyond gifts and stationery. The room on your left when you first enter the store is a natural space for displaying art.
Paper couture, I like it. If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend a visit to Paper Trail. You can also see images from the exhibit online.
I could not pass up the opportunity to share this striking Image of the Week from ephemerastudies.org. (Sorry, I grew up in NJ, actually quite close to the city featured in this 1926 booklet, so I found it particularly amusing.)
Ephemera Studies is a rather new website, curated by Saul Zalesch of Louisiana Tech University. He posts all kinds of amazing American ephemera. Take a gander at his gallery.
Ephemera Studies is a rather new website, curated by Saul Zalesch of Louisiana Tech University. He posts all kinds of amazing American ephemera. Take a gander at his gallery.
So July 4th weekend has come and gone, the hot hot weather is finally here (at least in my neck of the woods), and I have spent some time with some beach reading. Beach reading for the literary set, I should append. Beach reading for the collecting set, I might even add.
Two such novels caught my eye this summer. Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector (Dial Press, 2010) just went on sale last week. It's terrific. Goodman h been round the literary circuit before -- her debut was a National Book Award finalist, and her most recent a New York Times bestseller. But this book appeals to the bookish in a whole new way. The main characters are two intelligent twenty-something sisters, Jessamine and Emily. Emily is the CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up, who seems just a little too sweet and ethical for the job. The younger and less ambitious Jess works part-time at Yorick's Used and Rare Books in Berkeley when she's not out trying to save the redwoods. But Jess becomes enamored by a set of rare cookbooks that her boss acquired. With his encouragement, she begins cataloguing the books, finding erotic drawings and poems in the margins that signal the former owner's obsession with an unknown woman. One might think from this description that the novel's plot would focus on this mystery, a la Matthew Pearl, but it is but one element in a grander scheme of loves, losses, and lucidity. Bibliophiles who enjoy novels should not miss it. Where else in modern fiction are you going to read a line of dialogue like this, "You think there's something materialistic about collecting books, but really collectors are the last romantics. We're the only ones who still love books as objects."
The second novel in my proverbial beach bag is The Summer We Read Gatsby (Viking, 2010) by Danielle Ganek. Set in the Hamptons, this novel is about two half-sisters, somewhat estranged and brought together when they inherit a beach cottage called Fool's House (after the Jasper Johns painting). The recently divorced Cassie is back in the United States for one month to settle the estate of her aunt, while her eccentric sister Peck plays socialite. Their aunt, a sometime artist and art collector, told them there was something of "utmost value" to be found in the house, so between parties, dates, and shopping sprees, a secret or two percolates. Cassie thinks the valuable thing might be a Fitzgerald first edition:
"I don't know why, but I had this idea we might find a first-edition Great Gatsby hardcover with a dust jacket. Signed, maybe."
"What would that be worth?" Peck asked, scoffing. "Nothing. Maybe a few grand?"
"Signed?" I reached for the packet of letters and untied the ribbon. "Those things are worth a lot to some people." [Note: Like $180,000 at Bonhams record-breaking auction last year.]
Less intricate than Goodman's novel, Ganek's story is winsome nonetheless. Enjoy!
Two such novels caught my eye this summer. Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector (Dial Press, 2010) just went on sale last week. It's terrific. Goodman h been round the literary circuit before -- her debut was a National Book Award finalist, and her most recent a New York Times bestseller. But this book appeals to the bookish in a whole new way. The main characters are two intelligent twenty-something sisters, Jessamine and Emily. Emily is the CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up, who seems just a little too sweet and ethical for the job. The younger and less ambitious Jess works part-time at Yorick's Used and Rare Books in Berkeley when she's not out trying to save the redwoods. But Jess becomes enamored by a set of rare cookbooks that her boss acquired. With his encouragement, she begins cataloguing the books, finding erotic drawings and poems in the margins that signal the former owner's obsession with an unknown woman. One might think from this description that the novel's plot would focus on this mystery, a la Matthew Pearl, but it is but one element in a grander scheme of loves, losses, and lucidity. Bibliophiles who enjoy novels should not miss it. Where else in modern fiction are you going to read a line of dialogue like this, "You think there's something materialistic about collecting books, but really collectors are the last romantics. We're the only ones who still love books as objects."
The second novel in my proverbial beach bag is The Summer We Read Gatsby (Viking, 2010) by Danielle Ganek. Set in the Hamptons, this novel is about two half-sisters, somewhat estranged and brought together when they inherit a beach cottage called Fool's House (after the Jasper Johns painting). The recently divorced Cassie is back in the United States for one month to settle the estate of her aunt, while her eccentric sister Peck plays socialite. Their aunt, a sometime artist and art collector, told them there was something of "utmost value" to be found in the house, so between parties, dates, and shopping sprees, a secret or two percolates. Cassie thinks the valuable thing might be a Fitzgerald first edition:
"I don't know why, but I had this idea we might find a first-edition Great Gatsby hardcover with a dust jacket. Signed, maybe."
"What would that be worth?" Peck asked, scoffing. "Nothing. Maybe a few grand?"
"Signed?" I reached for the packet of letters and untied the ribbon. "Those things are worth a lot to some people." [Note: Like $180,000 at Bonhams record-breaking auction last year.]
Less intricate than Goodman's novel, Ganek's story is winsome nonetheless. Enjoy!
For several decades now it's been well nigh impossible to avoid predictions about the demise of the printed book. In addition to all the hand-wringing about ebooks eventually replacing printed books altogether, there is the usual moaning and groaning about all those other things that steal precious minutes away from reading: TV, video games, the Internet, (insert here your own personal villain). Much of this is targeted at what all this means for "the younger generation." If kids today aren't reading, for whatever reason, from whence will arise the next generation of book collectors?
Rather, focus on what the child knows, can relate to, and has an interest in: poop, for example. Or just about any other bodily function. Books about bugs also would make for a nice beginning book collection--the higher the bug ranks on your child's personal icky-ness meter, the better. Very young children, especially, have an insatiable curiosity about themselves, adults, the natural world, which curiosity can readily be put to good use creating a new generation of book collectors.
To paraphrase Gordon Geckko: Gross...is good. Gross is right. Gross works!
[P.S. Due to prior commitments this Sunday, this is appearing a couple of days early.]
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.
A swell slide show is available for your perusal and edification, care of the Huffington Post.
Pictured above: An inscribed first-edition copy of Oliver Twist. It sold, setting a world record for the most expensive Charles Dickens books.
Pictured above: An inscribed first-edition copy of Oliver Twist. It sold, setting a world record for the most expensive Charles Dickens books.
[Note: For background, see my preview of this sale, here.]
The sale of the first portion of the Arcana Collection was held this afternoon at Christie's London, for a total take of £8,169,800. Results are listed here. Just eight of the 48 lots failed to sell, but three of the major pieces were among them.
Things got started pretty quickly, with Lot 2, an early German Bible (1477) beating estimates and selling for £169,250. While Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus (1473), estimated at £250,000-350,000, did not find a buyer, his Decameron, bound with Masuccio's Novellino, fetched £361,250 (again surpassing estimates). Jean Grolier's copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphilimade £313,250, and the amazing copy of Hieronymus' Epistolae (1470) fetched £937,250. A 1484 Paris edition of Ovid sold for £97,250, while Pliny's Historia naturalis (Venice, 1476) made £313,250.
The Latin Nuremberg Chronicle sold for £67,250 (beating the estimates handily), and then theGerman copy (with illuminations) made an eye-popping £541,250 (estimates had it at £120,000-160,000).
The expected big-ticket items among the illuminated manuscripts didn't do much: the Abbey Bible, a fabulously-illuminated manuscript on vellum (Bologna, 1260s) and the Elizabeth de Bohun psalter/book of hours (England, 14th century), both estimated at £2 million plus, didn't sell. Nor did the Cauchon Hours.
There was a little manuscript action, though: a manuscript of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' Le livre des propriétés des choses (Paris, c. 1390), beat expectations to become the top seller of today's sale, reaching £1,105,250. An illuminated triptych on vellum over wood panels (Bruges, c. 1540) made £241,250, as did a pair of French books of hours from around the 1460s (Lots 36 and 37). A French manuscript of Ovid's Heroides (Paris, c. 1493), with lovely miniatures, made £601,250 (within the estimate range). And the Hours of François I fetched £337,250 (on estimates of £300,000-500,000).
Overall, not bad, but not a good day for the headliners.
The sale of the first portion of the Arcana Collection was held this afternoon at Christie's London, for a total take of £8,169,800. Results are listed here. Just eight of the 48 lots failed to sell, but three of the major pieces were among them.
Things got started pretty quickly, with Lot 2, an early German Bible (1477) beating estimates and selling for £169,250. While Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus (1473), estimated at £250,000-350,000, did not find a buyer, his Decameron, bound with Masuccio's Novellino, fetched £361,250 (again surpassing estimates). Jean Grolier's copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphilimade £313,250, and the amazing copy of Hieronymus' Epistolae (1470) fetched £937,250. A 1484 Paris edition of Ovid sold for £97,250, while Pliny's Historia naturalis (Venice, 1476) made £313,250.
The Latin Nuremberg Chronicle sold for £67,250 (beating the estimates handily), and then theGerman copy (with illuminations) made an eye-popping £541,250 (estimates had it at £120,000-160,000).
The expected big-ticket items among the illuminated manuscripts didn't do much: the Abbey Bible, a fabulously-illuminated manuscript on vellum (Bologna, 1260s) and the Elizabeth de Bohun psalter/book of hours (England, 14th century), both estimated at £2 million plus, didn't sell. Nor did the Cauchon Hours.
There was a little manuscript action, though: a manuscript of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' Le livre des propriétés des choses (Paris, c. 1390), beat expectations to become the top seller of today's sale, reaching £1,105,250. An illuminated triptych on vellum over wood panels (Bruges, c. 1540) made £241,250, as did a pair of French books of hours from around the 1460s (Lots 36 and 37). A French manuscript of Ovid's Heroides (Paris, c. 1493), with lovely miniatures, made £601,250 (within the estimate range). And the Hours of François I fetched £337,250 (on estimates of £300,000-500,000).
Overall, not bad, but not a good day for the headliners.
