Category Archives: bookselling

On Shakespeare’s Annotated Dictionary, links and news.

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Garrett

(8 May 2014: I’ve let this slide since the initial flurry of stories. My one update is something of a meta-update: Wechsler and Koppelman have their own page of links to press stories and interviews here. There’s at least one … Continue reading →

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Obscure Objects Explained.

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Garrett

Below you will find the description of this cheese grater, which was sold out of my recent illustrated online-only catalog, Occasional List 12. Bear with me. 12. [Obscure Object]. Stainless steel Inox-brand cheese grater rescued from the recycling cart of … Continue reading →

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Would you buy a used book from this man?

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Garrett

Photo by Myra Klarman.

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Publish and perish; or, the hazards of a certain peculiar strain of the children’s book trade.

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Garrett

Much has been made of late about the fact that the Internet is killing off the traditional publishing business (and of course its hapless trade cousin, the book store). I would suggest that the publication and peddling of books has … Continue reading →

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The anatomy of a melancholy trade.

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Garrett

Friend and colleague Lorne Bair has just published an essay on becoming and on being an antiquarian bookseller, with some apt bourbon-fueled ruminations on why we enter the trade: In the end, everyone I know who does this job well … Continue reading →

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I despair of providing an appropriately dreadful pun in the headline.

Posted on September 3, 2008 by Garrett

Somewhat souped-up print on demand has come to the University of Michigan library system. This has of course been in the works for a while, and I am not remotely qualified for (nor inclined toward) prognostication, so I will withhold … Continue reading →

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The seasonal emergence of the elusive bookseller.

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Garrett

Just a heads up that I will have a couple of tables at the Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair on May 18. The book fair has been timed to coincide with the Ann Arbor Book Festival. All of which should … Continue reading →

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Talking to the invisible hand.

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Garrett

Louis Sullivan, Mending fences where relevant, While asking around for extreme unction, Said “Forget I said ‘Form follows function.’” I’m fairly certain somebody once noted that a clerihew is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but this is a clerihew … Continue reading →

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Some preliminary notes on the aesthetic merits of interesting catalogues.

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Garrett

I am willing to break my silence when I receive several immensely pleasing bookseller’s catalogues in my post office box in one fell swoop, as I did this morning. Stuart Bennett’s fiftieth catalogue, Unique? A Catalogue of Apparently Unrecorded or … Continue reading →

Posted in bookselling, catalogues | 3 Comments

As the Mighty Wulritzer descends into the pit to the strains of Bronislaw Kaper: An update.

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Garrett

I will be leaving town (D.V.) this Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area to scout the Larsen book fair and check in with various friends and colleagues. Between two days at the fair and three subsequent days of scouting, … Continue reading →

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