Book Nook Directories

Paula Coleman has a useful site for book lovers called "Book Nook Directories." There you'll find listings for booksellers throughout the Carolinas and Georgia, both web-only and brick-and-mortar.

Where There's Smoke ...

You've won that book you've been searching for on eBay. You shiver in anticipation when the package finally arrives. Ripping it open, you can see the book is everything you hoped it would be, except ... What's that smell?

You employ the sniff test, and discover that the poor volume has been subjected to the smoke of a thousand cigarettes. Every molecule of paper has bound with one of Chesterfield's™.

What to do? You don't want to return the book, but you can't abide handling something that smells like an ashtray.

There are different solutions to this problem, but one of the easiest and least expensive involves the following materials:

• A large box of baking soda
• A "refrigerator box" of same
• Two rectangular plastic storage containers into which the book(s) will fit without touching the sides, one smaller than the other
• A lid to fit the larger box -- one that will provide an airtight seal.
• Time

1. Open the large box of baking soda, and spread some in the bottom of the larger container; about a 1/2 inch to an inch (2.5 to 4 cm) deep will do.

2. Place the smaller container on top of the baking soda.

3. Place the book(s) inside the smaller container.

4. If there is room, you may place a refrigerator box of baking soda in with the books (these boxes have a peel-away piece of cardboard that reveals a thin fabric; it allows the baking soda to absorb odors without spilling into the box).

5. Place the lid on the larger box and seal tightly.

6. Wait 4 to 6 weeks; check the odor of the book(s) periodically and replace the baking soda as needed.

This method's chief advantage is its cost-effectiveness. While it may not remove all the offensive odors, it will certainly mitigate them. Airing the book on your own smoke-free shelves after this treatment will also help.

A Mysterious Passion

Louis M. Boxer reflects on the beauty of book collecting:

The passion for collecting books, like good taste, is something you are either
born with and/or fortuitously cultivate with great loving tenderness. It must be
nourished with time, or it will atrophy and wither away, which one would
consider a serious crime just about anywhere! Collecting my mystery books for
the sole expectation of making an exponential return on your investments is
extremely risky and speculative. More importantly, it unabashedly eviscerates
and brutalizes the beauty of collecting mystery books. Collecting books is
something that should be pursued for one's pleasure and personal satisfaction
above all else. It doesn't require a lot of money but merely an interest to
read, to learn and to share in others' lives. Ultimately you find yourself
becoming more preoccupied with the pursuit and the pursuit and the acquisition of the printed word at the expense of food, sleep or even sex! If this describes you, then you have taken the first step to admitting that you are a bona fide bibliophile. You cannot escape your fate nor can you buy, steal, or fake this passion.

Read more at http://www.charlesbenoit.com/CollectingMysteryBooks.htm.

Hat tip to Charles Benoit for the link.

Book Larnin'

The serious student of the book arts will pay a visit to the website of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The school, founded in 1983, provides courses, lectures, and online information about printing, binding, identification, bibliography, and other essential knowledge about books for the collector and dealer.

If you can't afford the tuition or the time to attend the school, you can take advantage of the reading lists for the various courses. They're an education in themselves.

A Real Character

William Dalton provides insight into Steven T. Byington, a true eccentric New Englander, over at the Andover Townsman website. He provides some interesting background on one of the odder figures in the world of Watchtower book collecting.

Byington was a New Englander whose main claim to fame among WT collectors is his role as translator of a unique English-language Bible. He himself was a Congregationalist (more on that in the article). His translation was not published during his lifetime, but somehow the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society came across his manuscript. They bought the rights to it because it used the name "Jehovah" extensively throughout the Old Testament.

But even in death Byington had the last word. The terms of sale mandated that his original notes and forward had to be included in any published version. His original spellings and verse notation were kept as well.

More fun facts are to be had at the Townsman. Take a look!

Open Library

Open Library's stated goal is to have "One web page for every book ever published." Not too grandiose, is it? Then again, who'd have thought that Wikipedia would take off the way it did?

The project is in need of contributors who can provide book information, among other things. It promises to be a gold mine of information for collectors of all sorts of books, so head over there and see if you can add to the general store of knowledge.

What's Your Story?

If you collect books, what do you collect and what started you off? My personal obsession with Watchtower literature began in the 1970s, when a Witness left The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life at my house. It didn't really take off, though, until I came across a copy of The Harp of God by J. F. Rutherford at a library book sale in the early 1980s.

Feel free to share your stories in the combox.

Good for Its Age

You've seen it before. It's all over eBay, and you can't read five listings on any of the major book search engines before it jumps out at you.

It's a phrase you learn to drop quickly once you've spent any time in the book business. You start to wince when you hear it; it's like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Prospective sellers come up to you, hope in their eyes, and tender for your consideration a tattered, worn, ghost-of-its-former-self book. They utter the horrible words, and expect to be told that indeed, their decrepit volume is a prize. After all, it was printed in the nineteenth century!

You, on the other hand, know that there are at least a hundred copies to be had of that particular title, at least half of which look as if they'd just dropped off the press yesterday.

Age is not equal to value. Condition + scarcity + demand = value. It's true for books, just as it's true for cheese, fine wines, and furniture. Keep any of these in the wrong conditions, and you have fodder for the fireplace, and maybe vinegar for your salad.

For instance:
The Finished Mystery (1917) is much sought-after by collectors of Watchtower/Jehovah's Witness books. It is the posthumous work of Pastor Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Watch Tower Society, and the seventh volume in his Studies in the Scriptures series. Auction prices vary, but an original, intact copy in this binding can retail for over $100 in Fine condition.

This copy has seen better days. The covers are stained, the spine is faded and chipped, the hinges are broken and the super is showing. To boot, the binder made a boo-boo and sewed in a duplicate signature while leaving out the proper one, so that there is a page 417 after page 448.

I'd be lucky to get $25 for this gem.

On the other hand, the copy to the right is in comparatively good shape: You can see a bit of wear along the edges and along the spine, but it's a nice tight copy. This one might go for $75 to $100, depending on the market.

But there are still nicer ones to be had out there, and you wouldn't have to wait too long before one turned up.

When I was in New York in April, I paid a visit to Argosy Books, which has some fine examples of 15th and 16th century books for sale, with beautiful leather bindings and paper that has retained its suppleness and whiteness long after books made with 20th century pulp have crumbled into dust. Even many of these were not priced over a couple of hundred dollars. Why? Demand, for one. Not too many people are interested in theological works in Latin by writers of lesser stature than a Thomas Aquinas.

So when someone says, "It's good for its age," let the buyer beware.