Book Collectors’ Appetite for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

July 16, 2013
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While the renowned author and illustrator Eric Carle may be best known for his phenomenal work of children’s literature, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, it may come as a surprise that he additionally illustrated seventy more books, most of which were of his own creation. In today’s book market there are an unabashed 100 million copies […]

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Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 2nd Quarter 2013

July 9, 2013
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During the last quarter, current political events had an impact on book sales of certain genre relative to a particular topic. A number of rare book journals and organizations reported that sales for George Orwell’s classic 1984, for instance, have skyrocketed in the wake of the National Security Agency scandal.  1984 makes a good summer […]

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Mapping America

July 2, 2013
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Beyond The Golden Age of Dutch cartography which produced some of the most spectacular Dutch sea charts, or “Pascaartes,” with cartographers Johannes Blaeu and Abraham Ortelius, and Dutch atlas publishers Gerard Mercator and Hondius & Janssonius , the 16th century brought the earliest map to depict America as separate from Asia. The northeast coast of […]

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Letter from Greece

June 25, 2013
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For quite a while now, I have wanted to put down to paper some thoughts about the situation here in Greece regarding the book binding profession and the broader bibliophile interests in general. I could not say that people in Europe have lost their interest in books as a direct result of the financial crisis. […]

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Books – read them, collect them, love them

June 13, 2013
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     With the starry explosion of books in electronic form on the market, many theories have been made as to what position books in their natural form will now be ranked. While there are some who argue that printed books will cease to exist in a mere matter of time, others more optimistically believe that […]

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Big Data to the old Rare Book trade?

June 7, 2013
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The new Big Data technological innovation has the potential to usher in an information-based, scientific revolution in a number of industries and human endeavors. Like all scientific revolutions however, it will take some time to transition to all sectors of businesses and society, especially in cases where markets are relatively heterogeneous and imperfect, such as […]

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Something old and something new for Photography Month

May 31, 2013
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Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit a magnificent French style chateau which is a contemporary English museum, none other than the Bowes Museum in the town of Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England. The exhibition that drew me in is called Dreamscapes, and it will run through the summer, exploring photographer Tim Walker’s […]

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New technologies, old books

May 24, 2013
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Rare Books Digest occasionally hosts opinions and views of international book trade professionals such as this week’s contributor, technology engineer, book collector, and book dealer – Jim Sekkes (www.linkedin.com/in/sekkes/). Since the invention of the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century, an estimated 130 million books have been written and published. It took […]

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Play it again, F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby

May 17, 2013
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There has scarcely been a time when the name F. Scott Fitzgerald and the title The Great Gatsby has been so frequently mentioned with curiosity and awe. While the 1925 debut of the modern first novel certainly received its due fame, and while the 1974 film rendition made its premiere to the “watching” world, the […]

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Dune, Science Fiction Epic

May 10, 2013
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In June of 2011, Abebooks sold a first edition of the science fiction epic Dune, signed by the author, for $7,500. The amount matched the Chilton Book Company editor’s advance offer made to the book author, Frank Herbert, back in 1963. It proved to be a tough sell at the time, as publisher after publisher […]

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