Luck of the Irish

It isn’t even March and I’m already feeling the luck of the Irish. We had a great weekend in Michigan – pasta pesto at Cottage Inn in Ann Arbor followed by assorted shenanigans with the boys, each of whom provided one of the two most memorable moments of the weekend, not counting of course the sight of Eric and me with strips of blue plastic festooned with  colorful cards strapped around our heads to play a game called Headbandz. I  won’t belabor that one  --  I’m sure your imagination  can provide plenty of visuals.

The first sweet moment came when we used the Apple version of Skype to call Caitie and Joe in Maryland. At the sight of their faces the two year-old flew into orbit, running countless dizzying revolutions of joy around the kitchen table. Finally he crawled up on a chair, hollered, “Hi! Hi, Hi!” with great exuberance and  began telling them it was snowing. But then something white and gleaming on the screen suddenly caught his eye and his voice drifted off into silence. Very gently  -- and this kid doesn’t DO gently -- he reached out and touched Caitie’s face on the screen.

“Teeth,” he whispered. “Pretty teeth.”  And  then  he leaned in and kissed them.

Tyler’s turn came when he  shared with me his  deep dislike of girls. “I don’t like them  one little bit, Gran,  and I’m not going to marry them,” he told me.

“Really?” I said, “But I’m a girl and I think you like me.”

“I DO like you – a lot. But you’re a family girl. I only like FAMILY girls!”

After a  long walk in the snow, an hour of Sesame Street, and at  least ten hugs, kisses, and goodbyes we headed off late Sunday morning to an antiques mall in Findlay where  a bookseller we used to like at the Toledo mall had set up shop when that one closed. I emailed him Friday, so we had directions and his booth number, but before we found him we passed another bookseller who had an enormous display. All I can say is it must be cheaper to rent space there than it is here. We bought four books – two Ohio county histories, one book about oil lamps for our mall, and a gun book so dazzlingly underpriced it felt like stealing. After that I picked up a couple ephemera items, but the bookseller we came to see had a whole different set-up and we didn’t end up  buying  a thing from him. By the time we left I was big-time jealous because that mall allows sellers to erect signs with their business names. Ours emphatically does not.

The side-trip to the mall got us home late, but three packages awaited on the screened porch, the two items I bought from ebay since the rant a couple days ago and the earlier one which hadn’t arrived yet. I was so squirrely I made Eric open them but, surprise surprise! The paperback O’Brian novel for the big set of seafaring paperbacks was fine, the rare Pennsylvania regimental Civil War history was exactly as described, and the Irish books – oh, the Irish books! – are amongst the finest I’ve ever bought on ebay (see main picture above). I whirled and twirled over those ‘til I should have fallen over dizzy. Then Eric remembered he’d bought two books over the counter at the store for me Friday and  retrieved them from the car – Elmer Keith’s autobiography and a dazzling book about contemporary American muzzle loading gunmakers. So MORE whirling and twirling ensued. But after that I checked mall sales  and Saturday’s scraped some of the bloom off the rose. Fortunately, Sunday’s sales tripled Saturday's, so we wound up salvaging our worst month to date, thanks largely to that blizzard a couple weeks ago on the weekend.

Online sales weren’t especially good while we were gone  either – just a few  inexpensive titles that  overstayed their welcome. The only good thing was that the pretty little white mother-of-pearl wedding prayer book from the 40’s sold on my secret site for more than I ever could have  realized on a book site. But that leaves me asking myself if the Book Fair Effect could be starting already. The Book Fair Effect is that strange phenomenon where you indicate a desire to take certain books to the fair and all of a sudden their popularity shoots skyward. Already the little John Quincy Adams book sold and then the Japanese pottery book, followed by that big rose colored book about Ethiopian and Spanish coins in the Danish Museum that I included in the picture of random books that accompanied the blog about random things. And now the bridal prayer book sold. There’s five weeks to go until the fair, which means  I need to stay under the radar for awhile.

On the bright side though I  got an email from a woman wanting to sell antiquarian books. I called her and we set up an appointment to see them early tomorrow morning, but then she called back later to say that a friend of hers has books to sell also, so now we're off to see them all! I’m not holding my breath, but I am hopeful.

And very glad  to be a family girl.

The Hair of the Dog and Other Good Things

As I write this a giant snowstorm hangs over Chicago ready to come roaring our way. Actually, I don’t think it will amount to much in Medina, but the problem is that we are headed through western Ohio into Michigan Saturday so we can replay the lost Valentine’s Day with the little guys which, as you may recall, got snowed-out two weeks ago. There’s a chance the storm  will move in today and be out by tomorrow (the wind is howling like a banshee), but at the rate we’re going here the Valentine candy could wind up sharing space with the jelly beans in their Easter baskets.

The good news is I printed out the pages of my novel and there are about a hundred spread out over five chapters all of which I actually like except for chapter one. This is an unexpected good thing except that chapter one is the most crucial, as it’s the first read by an agent or editor. If they aren’t charmed within a couple pages the book is toast, so serious rewriting awaits. The other good news is Judy came to do the article for the newspaper about our business and participation in the book fair. Judy’s an old friend whom I met thirty years ago when she worked at the library. Later we were in a (now defunct) writers’ group together and spent losts of fun times speaking on the Ohio writers’ conference circuit. Yesterday’s questions were not only interesting, but encouraged me to talk about how I feel about bookselling, which is a little corny probably and maybe even embarrassing.  But I’m looking at it this way -- the inquiry came from a poet and will be written by one, so the result may transcend me. The photos, however,  are another story.

Anyway, all the ebay books I complained about in the last post have been dealt with once and for all. I spent a great deal of time giving several a new life and shining up the last ones in the door which were basically good but needing sprucing.  A few I gave to Eric for  the store, and one got sent back to its seller. I even adhered to the old adage about the “hair of the dog” and jumped back into the auction game. I do wonder whether this was wise, but I’ve bought some amazing stuff on ebay in the past and even in the recent past, so I I tried it again. I was on there maybe five minutes when a beautiful four volume hard cover centenary binding of Thomas Moore’s Irish “airs”  had my heart crooning like Bing Crosby. The books glow like emeralds (at least in the picture) and are ornately decorated. But of course time will tell the truth.

Yet another good thing is the book in the photo above which Eric bought for me at the Indianapolis show last weekend. It’s a signed,  numbered 1977 gun book that only had a print run of 1500 copies and is most collectible. In this instance the internet saves the day, as not many Ohioans collect, or even see, too many early California rifles.I knew he got me something, but didn’t know what because he frustratingly enough forgot to bring it home THREE nights in a row. But I nonetheless whirled and twirled at least once to express my pleasure with it last night. If you recall, for awhile there weapons were me, but not so much anymore. One at a time each book  departed and now as I look at that category I realize how few good things are left, which of course makes this book all the more welcome.

Okay, one more good thing and then I have to get back to work. I know you’re not enamored of magazines, but it’s been a magazine bonanza over here this week. I shipped them every single day since Monday, all ordered on ABE. These included six issues (complete run) of American Art Review; twelve issues ( complete run) of Journal of Aeronautical Sciences; two issues of The Spur to one customer; four issues (a complete run) of American Indian Art and one issue of Air Trails for a total of $189.

Just sayin' …

The Book Buyer Blues

I need to play with the papers again. I really do. Three days into the new week and I’m already as jangly as a charm bracelet. I’d ordered fifteen books from ebay for stock, all of which finally showed up now in what at first glance appeared to be a mountain of fun. In case you haven’t guessed, “appeared” is the operative word here. By the time I finished opening the lot I felt as though I’d  slipped on a banana peel and catapulted head-first into Dante’s Inferno.

The first package showed up wet and the moisture had seeped through to the inside where it completely ruined the lower back corner of the book because the seller failed to provide interior protection for a box that had been used so many times it was as squeezable as a teddy bear. The second one was a soft cover book that could no longer close properly due to the fact that a thick bunch of newsletters (which were nice and relevant to the topic) had been stored inside it. Next came one peppered with holes from worm damage, followed by one on which the red inked upper edge had bleached to a mottled pink. To compound the problem on the latter the seller waited NINE days to ship it a nd then tried to extract more postage from me after I’d paid the invoice he sent me originally.  In this instance tried is the operative word.

Of the rest, only ONE truly lived up to its billing (see photo above) and this one's been here a week or two. This seller both described it and wrapped it like a pro but, wouldn’t you know, he’s the only one to get badly burned out of all these auctions. I’ve decided I’m going to send him another $10 because he truly earned it. Five other books proved to be reasonably good and the remaining six were good AFTER I made repairs which included new backing for a spine, pressing and weighting dog-eared pages, tipping in a loose page, and cleaning dirty covers. After a fairly good previous run, this time I hit at top speed a brick wall of sub-par sellers.

The point here is not my own annoyance, the repairs, and/or  the need to repackage and return unwanted books, but what the whole debacle says about the book business.  I strongly suspect  that the vast majority of these sellers know nothing about books and care even less about them. If I were the average reader buying these books online to either keep or give as gifts, I’d be pretty fed up by now because I wouldn’t  know how to make repairs and would lack both the time or inclination even if I did.  In fact, I might just decide that online book buying is more trouble than it’s worth. For sure I’d be afraid to buy on ebay. However, this is not a rant about ebay  – I could do that, but I won’t – because ebay itself is not the problem in this instance. The problem is that too many sellers regard books as rectangular little moneymakers that require next to no effort on their part.

Every time a book buyer ends up badly disappointed the entire business tarnishes a little more and we who devote our lives to the cause suffer for it. Mistakes happen – I know that – and I am very accommodating when they do. But there’s a big difference between an honest mistake and shoddy work. Sadly, so few sellers bother to showcase their wares which means that the buyer ends up having little choice but to take a chance and hold her breath. In the early days of the internet I certainly got my fair share of disappointing books, but none were ever as bad as what shows up these days dubbed as excellent or very good -- the exact words used to describe every item I bought. Interestingly  enough, all of the listings had at least one photo, but in the end it didn’t much matter. Despite the old saying, sometimes a picture  isn’t worth more than a thousand words.

Will I buy on ebay again? Yes, probably I will because I have had success.  Will I be more careful? I’d like to say yes, but I think I’ve already been careful, so I don’t know. Right now alI I can think of is the very scarce 19th century regimental history for which I paid $75. It's not even here yet and already I'm afraid to open it.

Tis A Gift to Be Simple

Yesterday was one of those days you wish you could carry with you forever as a reminder that for a day to be perfect it need not contain anything more, or less, than simple pastimes and simple pleasures. I never like it when Eric is gone, but I manage, and sometimes, like yesterday, I do better than that. I transcend all that annoys me, worries me, burdens me by deliberately shutting it out and slipping into a stream of creative silence.

The day began with the usual Sunday morning walk with Nancy. Please don’t equate the word usual with routine and boredom because a walk with Nancy is never routine and certainly never boring. Nancy is like Longfellow’s spreading chestnut  tree, rooted securely to the earth and yet forever reaching upward to the heavens. She talks me out of the gnarly forest of my own mind into open spaces and fresh air, agrees with me sometimes, challenges me other times, but reminds me always that, evidence to the contrary, life is comprised of more blessings than banes. After we walked we went to Panera for breakfast where I had a blueberry bagel and a mug of mango tea. Then we came back to my house to admire the new mirror and pick up a mylar cover for a new book her daughter got for Christmas.

I had planned to spend  the afternoon doing one of two things. I would either read “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair”  cover to cover, or rework chapter one of the novel. I do believe that if I am to write that thing – and I’m still not sure I really am – it’s going to have to be from the very beginning. Either occupation may have been sublime (or not), but I did neither because I suddenly remembered that when Eric was in Indiana last year I used the weekend to create the card for the gift basket that serves as a door prize for the book fair. An excuse to play with the papers is a gift in itself. Five minutes later I was sitting on the basement floor taking every last scrap out of two giant Rubbermaid tubs. A card is not large – the space on this one measures  4” x10” so we are not talking the need for a lot of paper here. A couple items and a dash of invention probably could do the trick, but I was beginning with a blank slate – not even a ghost of an idea lurked in the shadows.

When this happens the paper takes charge, or so it seems. I sort through it (see photo above to understand the magnificence of scope)  piece by piece waiting for a whisper. When one tickles my ear I set it aside. Every chosen postcard, torn magazine cover, stray page, or letter won’t  work its way into the project and almost never in its entirety, but still every one informs whatever happens in ways both soft and subtle.

It’s always scary to choose the first pieces and commit them to the paste jar, which of course is silly because collage is a forgiving art. One can always – must always – cover over mistakes, fifteen times if needed . But the beauty of it is that all those mistakes (as in life) add texture and interest, especially if a new layer is partially scraped off to reveal what lies beneath. Once I begin  the work time disappears. Watches stop flipping digital numbers, clock pendulums stop swinging and there is nothing  -- nothing -- to be done but what is being done is this river of complete and total peace. A card of course is not Art, the kind with a capital A, but that doesn’t matter. Yes, yes, I want to be happy with it. I want it to please me and will work on it until it does – but the process matters as much as the product and maybe even more.The process is key. The process is pay-off. The process is balm for the restless spirit.

Just as I came back upstairs the clock on the microwave flipped from 4:59 to 5:00. Three and a half hours of silence with no worries, no to-do lists, no nattering nabobs of negativism screaming from the TV. I have always wanted to use Spiro Agnew’s famous line “nattering nabobs of negativism" in a sentence and I just did, though mercifully not with the same intention it was uttered initially.

Amazing what a little paste and paper can do, even for the vocabulary!

Sailing Right Along!

Well, this is very interesting! Remember Thursday how I complained about that small sale we went to? I had gotten  fifteen hard cover books on sailing, but earmarked  ALL of them for Eric for the store because people who know nothing about books and care even less about them have devalued them beyond comprehension. Since Eric is in Indianapolis for the weekend at a show, this morning I took them out of my new L.L. Bean bag and boxed them up for him. That’s when I spotted two excellent things that had escaped me earlier.

Okay, I confess -- I really didn’t look at these books individually as I was buying them. My gaze swept over the shelf and my brain quickly registered clean, familiar, good for the store. So I swept them up in one fell swoop, not realizing that in the mix was hidden a  first edition of Seamanship in the Age of Sail. This one used to be a goodie, which it deserves to be for its plethora of technical detail augmented by technical drawings. Still I figured it had probably plummeted, which it has to some degree, but  remains miraculously viable at $50-60. The other thing I got for him, but am now ALSO taking back for myself, is the sixeen soft cover volumes of Patrick O’Brian’s nautical novels in the Norton set from the 1990’s shown above. I’m short four volumes, but in a sense only one, because the numbers run in consecutive order minus #11. So that means if I buy that one I could still list them as a partial set of 17 now and then keep an eye out for the three others, adding them and adjusting the price as I go if needed. Yes, it’s extra work, but it’s also a very worthwhile endeavor.

Now before you think I’m a book snatcher, and a mean one at that giving my husband something nice and then grabbing it back,  you have to understand that we have a pact. I get first dibs for online because it’s harder for me to find good competitive inventory these days and he has more books than shelves anyway. He’ll be happy for me – REALLY – and I’m happy for me too. I knew the novels were all published by Norton, but I wasn’t sure they all came from the same series. The fact that they are all  Aubrey/Maturin stories not only gives me a viable listing – ONE viable listing – but means that I didn’t waste my time yesterday after all.

Okay – zing! – we’re switching topics now. Here’s something quite interesting too. It’s a little gossipy, but you’ll find it fascinating I’m sure. Last night there was a sale we like very much, but  didn’t attend because Eric had already left for Indianapolis. A bookseller friend went and I made him swear he’d give me the skinny afterwards, which he kindly did first thing this morning. The reason I was so anxious to hear the news is that the last time they had this sale all hell broke loose. We had gone for coffee with another bookseller so we missed the big argument that almost came to blows, but what we did see was the woman sitting in the hallway blocking the entrances to both rooms while she scanned a mountain of books on the floor  -- at the CLOSE of the sale, mind you,  when  everyone was trying to get their stuff out of the building! The woman who heads the sale was so furious she looked like a lava lamp the color od a cardinal-- you could actually see the blood shooting from her neck to her face. Impending change was so thick in the air it was pea soup.

Sure enough, prior to last night’s sale  she sent an email to all booksellers announcing that this would be the last sale to allow scanning (YAY!) which was no big surprise. The surprise came in how she chose to handle things last night. You won’t believe it!  First of all, she emphatically stated that no one was to arrive before four o’clock for a five ‘clock sale. At that time, regardless of where you stood when she appeared with the numbers, everyone would choose a number at  RANDOM and line up accordingly at 4:45. No sharing of numbers between spouses or friends and no consecutive numbers for pairs unless by the luck of the draw.I have to admit I thought it was fairly diabolical, but Eric found it downright amusing.

“I have a hunch it will do exactly what it’s intended to do,” he told me, the Sister Martha Mary grin I’ve always loved twitching at the corners of his mouth.

I was not charmed. In fact, I harrumphed  at length about both the new policy AND  his lack of righteous indignation. And then I promptly forgot  about it since we weren’t going anyway. Yesterday though Judy had to postpone our appoinment for the newspaper interview about the book fair, so I thought of it again and zapped an email to my friend begging for a full report. This morning he told me that the place teemed with scanners (new people mostly! ) who were extremely put out over the whole thing and vowed never to return. Some of the old scanners vowed likewise which may not matter much either way because the books apparently didn’t warrant that much ire in the first place.

So then. It looks like I owe a very smart guy with a cute grin an apology. In fact, I even feel almost guilty for taking all those books back.  But not guilty enough.

They're mine.

P.S. I know from past picture experience that you guys have eagle eyes. So before you tell me I'm missing two volumes instead of one  in the photo at the top, I already know. I left it on my desk when I picked up the others on the floor to take the picture. Just imagine it's there.

Facing the Music

Excitement builds and work mounts as we move into the final weeks of preparations for the book fair. Last night we attended a board meeting to iron out all the details and gauge “the State of the Union.” I spent most of yesterday calling vendors and trying to find “hooks” with which to snag newspapers willing to run stories about them and their participation in the fair. It used to be much easier to do this, but as I may have mentioned, newspapers are shrinking while demand for space remains high. So far, one is looking like a go and I did an interview with a new shop I’m rather crazy about, so that should be fun and maybe even easy to pitch with a press release. I also landed a feature story about us – which makes me a little uncomfortable because this isn’t about us – but I am the only dealer from Medina and the local paper gave us a green light ONLY if the story featured a bookseller. I’m not writing it – the incomparable Judy Totts is doing those honors. If I could pick any working journalist in the whole state of Ohio to write this it would be Judy. So while I’m a little weird with it, I’m also excited to see what she will do. To understand this you have know that Judy was a former poet laureate of the state of Ohio and has won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Award, as well as many prizes for newspaper features.


You’d think, given all the stuff clamoring for my attention, I’d have the sense to stay home today (and not be blogging), but -- well, you know how that goes. I never seem to know when to say no.This morning we ran over to a small sale we’d avoided for two years and went back to last month. I knew there wasn’t a chance I’d be carrying out bags of awesome books as we once did there, but hope springs eternal. Of course hope met its match in the first five seconds and was roundly KO’d. I bought a couple insignificant titles for the mall (which better pick up soon because the weekend’s storm clobbered our sales) and loaded up probably fifteen nice nautical books for the store. For me it was pretty much a waste of time, but I have only myself to blame for that.

The big thing I need to do today is a chore I loathe and detest – buying needed items for the fair. Why I put this stuff off is beyond comprehension, but there you have it and now it’s like one giant order-fest from multiple vendors. I have to get cellophane bags for the ephemera from U-line; more mylar covers from Brodart and a couple scalpels (I meant SPATULAS! -- good grief!) because I can’t find either of mine and am going nuts without them; Japanese paper from Talas to repair a map I maybe shouldn’t touch, but am going to because I truly think I can do it; a pound of book deodorizer fro m Godsey's so I can bring a wonderful Cleveland ephemera item I got the last time I visited the singing auctioneer; and a musical mechanism from a musical mechanism store which I have to RE-find online because I didn’t have the sense God gave a gnat to stop and place the order when I found it initially.

I know you’re probably wondering why need a musical mechanism. Well, last spring I bought at auction the gorgeous 19th century photograph album featured in the photo at the top. The base is a music box which contains the original mechanism except that it’s been overwound and Eric couldn’t fix it. So what I want to do is get a new one and then package the old one so the buyer can have both. It’s also about half full of photographs, primarily of children – but not the same children. As you can see, there's a piece of ugly tape in the corner of one picture, but that too, will be fixed before the fair. Enjoy the cute pictures of some of the little people below. With any luck they all grew up to be old people.

Meanwhile I'll get down the stack of catalogs, figure out what I need, pick up the phone, and -- FINALLY-- face the music! .

Working My Way to the Book Fair

The storm has passed and life returns to normal. Yesterday the streets were clear, but the wind was biting, so we holed up for the second day in a row. However, from this experience we have learned something very important about ourselves. Unless we become so feeble that we can’t lift a book with both hands we can NEVER retire. Settling into a life of leisure may be the American Retirement Dream, but it’s definitely not ours. We told ourselves we could do anything we wanted this weekend which sounded extremely good except that after we read a lot, watched a Netflix documentary called Craft In America (a PBS show we’d missed) and talked excitedly about it for half an hour we were flat out of fun things to occupy ourselves. So Eric cleaned the house and I worked listing books and figuring out what we will take to the upcoming book fair. Only then – only when the vacuum cleaner roared and my feet flew up and down the stairs a million times did the house begin to breathe again. Clearly, we do not do idleness well.

I don’t know whether this is a good thing or bad thing, but I lean sharply toward good for the simple reason that there is no line of demarcation between work and play for me. I love selling books, I love writing when I’m in “the zone”, and I love playing with my art papers. So it’s not surprising that in the end, this weekend was salvaged by the call of the books. At least for me anyway. As for Eric, he doesn’t love cleaning, but he doesn’t hate it either, so for him there was a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment which is much better  than frittering away time doing nothing. See what I mean? We lack the relaxing gene. My antiques dealer friend Darwin says he lacks it too and thinks we should probably buy a couple if they turn up on ebay!

Yesterday’s work also blessed me with a sense of peace and well-being regarding the upcoming antiquarian show. While I am certainly not bursting with books over here, I am not as bad off as I thought I was either. Over the past year I tucked away this book and that book and now all of a sudden there’s a small cache of real goodies including a signed copy of the Mark Twain biography written by his daughter, Clara; an 1895 Compleat  Angler; an early Ray Vietzen archaeology (The Ancient Ohioans); an 1849 copy of John Quincy Adams’ Letters to his Son (religious); and an 1812 copy of Washington’s Final Address. I also have a ton of first edition novels by the French mystery writer Georges Simenon, an impressive array of Easton Press titles from the 70’s that have never been read, a nice collection of pop-up books and specialty vintage kid books, that rare little baseball book I showed you not long ago, those 16th and 17th century vellum documents from England, a rare map (we'll talk about it later), and boxes and boxes of ephemera.

I also found something I got this past summer that confounded me then and confounds me now. It’s a book titled The Marrow of Astrology which was published in 1688. Truly, this is one of those books you could  easily pass by without even a glance due to the fact that it was rebound cheaply and plainly in 1906. We know this because the daughter of the former owner wrote it at the top of the foreword of the text. Both the title page and copyright page are missing, but the book is actually two books in one and the second part clearly shows the title. Of course the pages are very delicate, but can be carefully read, though you do  have to decipher ye olde English. What I love most about it is a section where the author numbered his many points on a topic and got all the way to thirteenthly!  

Handwritten notes and marginalia to the original text can be a sticky wicket, but I suspect in this case it may depend greatly on the sensibilities of the buyer, as they date from 1906. The tricky part of this book is pricing it. One lone copy exists on ABE owned by a British dealer who is asking $1300. His has been rebound also, but in calf, and is not missing the two pages as mine is. But then again, that makes mine the bargain copy -- which in a way is good, but in another way is the problem. The cheap binding and missing pages are egregious faults which devalue it by a good bit. But what is “a good bit”? There’s where it gets tricky.

I need to do some research on it, as well as on the 1812 Washington’s Final Address. As for the John Quincy Adams book of letters to his son – it looks like that one will be skipping the fair this year after all. I listed it on ABE yesterday because I couldn’t believe anyone at the fair would pay a three-figure price tag for a little book that measures 3"x4-1/2" and is not a first edition. JQ Adams died in 1848, the year the book was published and my copy dates from 1849. But it looks like I might have been wrong because it sold on ABE as I was writing this.