Tonight at my local Barnes & Noble, book artist, author, and FB&C columnist Richard Minsky did a talk/signing for his new book, The Book Art of Richard Minsky. As one of the five books we highlighted in our holiday gift guide this year, you may already be aware of this stunning new retrospective of Minsky's book art, which is available in a trade edition from your local bookseller or a limited slipcase edition direct from Richard. But those were not the only books on display while Richard shared some stories of his bookmaking. There was also the Barnes & Noble 2012 Desk Diary (day planner, calendar, whatever you call it) featuring the American decorated bindings that Richard has been researching, collecting, cataloguing, selling, and celebrating for years. (He chronicled many of them in his 2010 book, The Art of American Book Covers: 1875-1930.) There is a hardcover version of the Desk Diary, which comes in its own box, and two faux leather softcover versions, all of which are beautiful for those of you who, like me, still keep a written calendar. And, at under $20, the price is perfect for gift giving.

Richard showed some images from each of his books, read a short entry on how he designed his first unique binding, and talked about what he looks for in great book art, or fine art to be more broad. "Material, image, and metaphor," must all be in balance, he said. When asked about what he finds interesting in commercial publishing, he cited the ingenuity of pop-ups and moveable books and a revival of stamped covers, such as can be seen in B&N's redesigned "classics." Some new Penguin hardcover classics also have stamped cloth covers (designed by the awesome Coralie Bickford-Smith) as do recent bestselling children's books like The Dangerous Book for Boys (U.S., 2007). If we are trending away from jackets and back to decorated cloth, we'll have Richard Minsky to thank.

Well ... maybe. The Guardian reported yesterday about a recent investigation into the untimely death of Jane Austen.

The facts first: Jane Austen died in 1817, at only 41 years old. A variety of causes of death have been suggested over the years: cancer, Addison's disease, tuberculosis, typhus. In summary we don't know why she died. We do know, however, thanks to her letters, that her health took a steep decline in 1816, continuing downhill until her death the following year.

Fast-forward almost 200 years. Enter Lindsay Ashford, a British crime novelist, who moved to Chawton village, the former haunt of the Austen clan, in 2008. She began her new novel in the library of Chawton House, where Jane's brother Edward lived. While taking breaks from writing in the Chawton House library, Ashford read through many of Jane's letters. She came across this intriguing entry from a letter just months before her death: "I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour."

A Message from the Authors Guild...

Are any of the books in Amazon's new e-book subscription/lending program properly there?

Earlier this month, Amazon launched its Kindle Online Lending Library as a perk for its best group of customers, the millions who've paid $79 per year to join Amazon Prime and get free delivery of their Amazon purchases. Under the Lending Library program, Amazon Prime members are allowed to download for free onto their Kindles any of more than 5,000 books. Customers are limited to one book per month and one book at a time--when a new book is downloaded, the old one disappears from the Kindle.

The program has caused quite a stir in the publishing industry, for good reason (as you'll see).

First, let's look at how books from some major U.S. trade publishers wound up on the Lending Library list.

The British Library's new exhibit, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, showcases the library's incredible collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. The 154 colorful and gilded books on exhibit were made for and owned by England's kings and queens between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh had a private viewing just before Friday's opening. And what did QE2 fancy? According to the BBC:

Catalogue Review: Raptis Rare Books, #1

Matthew Raptis is a congenial young bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year at a book fair. From his age and his casual personality, you might not guess that his stock is exceptional high points of modern literature. Some examples: a $550,000 Great Gatsby (inscribed, in the elusive jacket); a $45,000 signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; a $27,500 Catcher in the Rye, in an unrestored fine dust jacket; and a $25,000 signed first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird in a very good dust jacket.

With full color illustrations and clear descriptions, this first catalogue is delight to look at. There are 77 pages, brimming with books, so this review is just the tip of the iceberg. I enjoyed seeing some out-of-the-box titles like Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia ($1,500) and Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers ($1,250). A first edition of Gregory Maguire's 1995 book, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is signed with a line from the novel and a drawing of a witch ($650). Very cool!

The signed first edition of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman ($950) is tempting (because I love that novel) even if the jacket on the signed first edition of The Magus is prettier ($2,000). A signed first edition of Stephen King's The Shining would be a neat acquisition ($3,000).  

A complete set of Dick Francis--forty volumes, all signed--is impressive ($19,500), but for me not quite as enticing as the John Updike collection of first editions of each of the four Rabbit books ($2,750).

In the second half of the catalogue, there are sections on literature and children's books--neat to see a signed first edition of The Outsiders there ($3,250)--as well as photography, and a non-fiction section with many modern economic and political titles. I couldn't do it justice by naming a few here. Take a look for yourself -- there is so much to see! Download it here: http://www.raptisrarebooks.com/catalogues.php 

Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Zhenya Dzhavgova, proprietor of ZH Books in Fremont, California:

NP: How did you get started in rare books?

ZD: My entering the rare books business was a bit accidental. Where I am from people do not generally buy and collect antiquarian books--not because they do not love books, but because they do not have the means to enjoy books as objects of art. Seven years ago, when I came to the US, I was absolutely astonished to find out how easy it is to purchase literary items and build a collection. I have been fascinated with books from a very early age and I have always loved to read, so I had amassed quite a library, including many reference and foreign language books, when I  stumbled upon some very interesting and uncommon books and ephemera at an estate sale. I decided to try to sell them and ZH BOOKS was born.

NP: Where are you from originally and what brought you to the States?

ZD: I am originally from Bulgaria and I came to the US seven years ago. There were many reasons as to why I decided to emigrate. Incidentally, when I was on my way to the airport to get on a plane to San Francisco, I saw a graffiti scrawl on a building, which summed up my reasoning for leaving nicely: "I love my land, but I do not much like the country." In other words, I loved the people and the beauty of Bulgaria and I missed my family and friends, but there were no opportunities for young people there and life was very hard. I have built a new life for me here in the US, but I will always go back to visit and I will always be Bulgarian at heart.

Coming up this weekend is the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. Whether you're in the market for a first edition of Louisa May Alcott's Flower Fables (at Second Life Books of Lanesborough, MA) or a unique Bonnie and Clyde crime collection (including bullets, at University Archives of Westport, CT), or you'd simply like to take in one of the fair's activities--talks about collecting and expert appraisals--there will be something for every booklover in Beantown.

Sadly I won't be walking the floor; if I were, Mac Donnell Rare Books would be my first stop. They're bringing a leaflet that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow printed up to give away to children who visited him at Craigie-Longfellow House. It would also be very cool to see Athena Rare Books' first edition of Alfred Dinsdale's Television, the first book in English on that "vast wasteland." They also have a signed second edition.

Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., Doyle NY will auction the Fath collection of prints, books, and autographs. Creekmore Fath was a Texas lawyer and politician who served in the FDR administration and made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. His collection is particularly strong in the work of Thomas Hart Benton; it is the largest private collection outside the artist's family and contains all but five known Benton prints. In an exhibition catalogue for a selection of his prints, Fath once wrote, "The desire to collect, and the pleasure derived from each acquisition, are as exciting and compelling as passionate love."

Prints by other American regionalists, such as Grant Wood, George Bellows, and John Steuart Curry (and the Mexican social realists they were inspired by), as well as a rare book library of Americana, presidential biography, modern literature, and illustrated books round out the 268-lot sale. See the entire catalogue here. Below is a visual preview of some highlights.

Catalogue Review: Lowry-James, #7

When I think of Lowry-James, I think of flowers. That may sound odd, but it's because when I visit them at book fairs, their both is filled with beautiful prints of flowers and fauna. And at one fair last year, Priscilla Lowry-Gregor showed me a manuscript herbarium that was so sweet, it made me wish I collected in that area (and perhaps I will one day!).

As you might imagine, Lowry-James of Whidbey Island, Washington, established in 1986, specializes in natural history books, but also cartography, literary women, and British culture. This fourteen-page catalogue is devoted to wood engravers and wood engravings.

A Lakeside Press prospectus featuring wood engravings by Rockwell Kent to announce the publication of "Four American Books:" Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Two Years before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and Walden by Henry David Thoreau ($245). It would be an excellent acquisition of any number of collectors--publishing historians, Lakeside Press aficionados, completists for any of the authors, etc.

Three artists in particular loom large. There is quite a selection of Paul Landacre engravings, including the evocative Sapling Slim and Shadow Naked ($950) and many California landscapes, such as Hills and the Sea … Malibu Coast ($950) and Monterey Hills ($950). Winslow Homer is also well represented here with his Harper's Weekly Civil War scenes. His drawings from the battlefield were engraved in boxwood for the magazine's illustrations. William Nicholson's 'alphabets and sports' round out the catalogue, with color-printed lithographs (originally rendered as woodcuts) such as W is for Waitress ($325) and November: Boxing ($350).

Check out all these beauties by clicking here.

p.s. Lowry-James also makes homemade candles during the holiday season. A great gift idea.