Berkshire Books

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:35:57 GMT

I'm trying to get into the habit of posting here more regularly. But since I don't have anything actually written, I thought I'd scare you all with this:

(Click for a larger view, if you dare!)

If you're Of A Certain Age, you'll recognize the uke-player here as Reddy Kilowatt, the spokes-character for electricity (originally the Alabama Power Company, then licensed to other power companies all over the U.S.)

The book itself is a pamphlet with Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino recipes. They don't look… terrible but all the usual suspects are here: Egg Foo Yung and Pork Chop Suey (Chinese), Sukiyaki Chicken and Teriyaki Steak (Japanese), Adobo (Filipino). The Hawaiian recipes seem to be a mix of bake-off recipes made with coconut, pineapples, or bananas, and dishes made with exotic-sounding island ingredients (though there's a list of substitutions at the end, which gives sweet potatoes as a substitute for poi). My favorite recipe is the Poi Cocktail: milk, poi (or sweet potatoes…), sugar, vanilla, crushed ice, a dash of nutmeg). This drink surely belongs in The Gallery of Regrettable Food -- not least because it contains no alcohol.

Book Signing - Nilda Rego & Robert Tatam - December 1

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:15:57 GMT

Local History Book Signing
Saturday, December 1
1:00 - 3:00

Nilda Rego	Robert Tatam

Author of Days Gone By	Author of Old Times in Contra Costa

Berkshire Books is hosting a book signing and discussion with two popular local history authors, Nilda Rego and Robert Tatam on Saturday, December 1.

Nilda Rego is the author of three volumes of Days Gone By, collections of her local history columns for the Contra Costa Times. Robert Tatam is the author of the popular Old Times in Contra Costa. Chat with the authors about the history of your city, and get signed copies of their books for yourself -- and pick up a few holiday presents for friends and family!

Book Signing!

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:02:32 GMT

Local History Book Signing with Dean McLeod,
author of Port Chicago
Saturday, October 27
1:00 to 3:00

Dean McLeod has a new book out in Arcadia's "Images of America" series, Port Chicago. He will be in the shop to sign copies of his book and talk about the "three great stories" of Port Chicago: the 1944 explosion of two munitions ships at the Navy dock adjacent to the town; the Port Chicago "mutiny" by African-American stevedores who refused to work under the same unsafe conditions that led to the explosion; and the controversy over the demolition of the town by the Navy in 1968.

Dean McLeod is the author of a previous Contra Costa local history book, Bay Point. He also works with the Bay Point Historical Society (which he helped found) and the Contra Costa County Historical Society.

For more info, read Nilda Rego's interview with Dean McLeod in the Contra Costa Times.

Upcoming Events at the Shop!

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:24:29 GMT

We've got lots of events coming up in the next few months. I'm putting them all in this post for handy reference. There'll be more details on each even as they get closer (note: dates on calendar are closer than they appear).

October

Berkshire Books Big Read Event - Book discussion about Fahrenheit 451
Tuesday, October 16
7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Concord is taking part in the October Big Read Program, a series of events highlighting FAHRENHEIT 451, Ray Bradbury's classic novel about a frightening vision of the future in which firemen don't put out fires, they start them in order to burn books. As part of the month-long series of events Berkshire Books is hosting a discussion about the book and its author.
The Big Read Program is sponsored by the Concord Library and is part of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. For more information and schedule of Big Read events, visit their wiki at http://concordbigread.pbwiki.com.

Local History Book Signing with Dean McLeod, author of Port Chicago
Saturday, October 27
1:00 – 3:00

Dean McLeod, author of Bay Point, has a new book out in Arcadia's "Images of America" series, Port Chicago. He will be in the shop to sign books and talk about both books. For more info, read Nilda Rego's interview with Dean McLeod in the Contra Costa Times.

November

National Novel Writing Month
Weekly write-ins Sundays from noon-4:00 p.m. throughout November.

November means NaNoWriMo is upon us again and once again! And once again, Cheryl is going to grind out 50,000 words in 30 days. And once again, we will be hosting weekly write-ins for local NaNoWriMo participants every Sunday afternoon in November.

For more information about National Novel Writing Month, visit their website.

Book Collecting Talk by Lynn
Day and time to be announced

Also in November, Lynn plans to hold another of his popular book collecting talks. Bring your old books for a casual appraisal and helpful advice.

We haven’t settled on a date, so here’s your chance to schedule it. What days/times would you prefer? Weekdays or Weekends, daytime or evenings? Drop us a comment.

December

Local History Book Signing with Nilda Rego and Bob Tatum
Saturday, December 1

To kick off December, we’ll have two popular local history authors in for a book signing and discussion. Come and meet Nilda Rego, author of Days Gone By, a collection of her local history columns, and Bob Tatum, author of Old Times In Contra Costa. Get signed copies for yourself and pick up a few Christmas presents!

Website: Beauty for Commerce: Publisher's Bindings 1830-1910

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:03:31 GMT

A friend pointed me to this wonderful online exhibit of nineteenth century book covers, Beauty for Commerce, at the University of Rochester Library - Rare Books and Special Collections website. It reproduces hundreds of decorative bindings (and some early dust jackets), with running commentary pointing out design elements and techniques. From the introduction:

"This exhibit chronicles the growth of English and American publishers' binding from its infancy in the 1830s to its decline in the early 20th century. Highlighted are the distinct changes in design that reflected not only technical innovations in the means of book production and decoration but shifting social and cultural trends as well. Viewed as a group, publishers' bindings represent a revolution in the history of the book. Viewed individually, each binding offers an often gilded window to the fashion of its day."

Often gilded, indeed! Here's one of my favorites:

Frances Trego Montgomery. On a Lark to the Planets. Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Co., 1904

The exhibit is divided into ten-year sections (I like to think of them as "chapters") and includes chapters on notable designers Sarah Wyman Whitman and Margaret Armstrong, plus a miscellany reproducing the covers of three more designers.

Above and beyond the wealth of information and beautiful graphics, the exhibit is superbly laid out and easy to navigate. You can click on the small photo to see an enlargement of each book, which includes a magnifiying box you can move around to inspect details.

I can spend hours here. Er, well I could spend hours here but -- back to my day job!

--Cheryl

Harry Potter and the After-market of Doom

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:49:24 GMT

Millions of copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be sold this weekend. Millions. And yet booksellers will make very little money on the book. They'll put DH into the hands of the ~~ravening hordes~~ customers, stay open after midnight so people can get the books RIGHT NOW, spend money and add staff time to set up Potter Parties, and just watch the money go by as it flows from (some of) our wallets into the coffers of Scholastic/Bloomsbury and J.K. Rowling.

Yes, even the Big Box and Internet stores. Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Waterstones -- they'll make some money, because they can get the biggest discount from the publisher. But the price wars are too hot and heavy, and most of the large chains are buying the book at 45%-55% and selling the book for half price. At Amazon, 'You Save' 49%.

Pottermania!

Smaller bookshops will lose money on sales of the book. Because they can't order the book in vast quantities, smaller chains and independents will not get the discount Amazon does. They will not, more than likely, sell the book for half price, but they'll discount it as much as they can -- and they'll still lose money. The best they can do is to use the book as a "loss leader" that brings people into their store to buy other things, but Pottermania being what it is, the likelihood of that happening is rather slim.

Bookseller public service announcement #1: So if you do buy the book, especially at an indie shop, why not look around for something else while you're there? After all, you're getting a good deal on the DH.

Here's an interesting article from the Telegraph about Pottermania and booksellers in the UK.

The only booksellers who will make money on DH are used bookshops. But not this weekend.

And not for long!

Why?

Because 1) DH has a huge -- an enormous -- a GIGANTInormous print run and 2) many, many, many thousands of people are buying it because it's The Thing. Sure, most of core YA and fantasy audience who'll buy the book will probably keep it forever. However, all those people who buy DH because it's The Thing won't. When a New Thing comes along, they'll run after that -- and dump their copies of DH into the "aftermarket."

Used bookstores will snap up the first stream of incoming copies, and pay/trade at top end of their scale. But they'll soon become increasingly reluctant to take the book, and finally will reject it completely. On account of they already have too many copies on their shelves and in overstock.

And then the paperback will come out, making hardcover copies worth about minus five cents.

Meanwhile, more and more copies will show up at Goodwill and Salvation Army and library book sales. They'll fill page after page of $1 listings at Amazon Marketplace. More and more and more copies, until the only thing to do with a copy of DH is throw it in the dumpster alongside copies of The Firm and The South Beach Diet.

Makes you shudder, huh? You have a better idea? Turn them into rafts at Great America? Build roads with them (as I've heard has been done with old Harlequin romances)? Provide landfill for a new continent? Maybe now's the time to get working on the elevator to the moon!

Bookseller public service announcement #2: If you're buying the book this weekend, be kind to the bookstore staff. They're frazzled, they're probably working overtime -- some of them at midnight -- they're dealing with more customers in one day than in the previous month, and they've already had encounters with what seems like forty rude customers in the past fifteen minutes. So don't be another one.

Cookbooks, the Collecting Thereof

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:54:29 GMT

I collect cookbooks and books on cooking, so when I saw a copy of America's Collectible Cookbooks: The History, the Politics, The Recipes, by Mary Anna DuSablon (Ohio University Press, 1994), I had to have it. And while I like it, I have to say the book is rather a hodge-podge. Not quite a manual for collectors, not quite a historical study, not quite a cookbook, it can be disappointing if you're looking for depth in any of those areas.

Recipes from many of the cookbooks are provided more as illustration than for actual use, and while I'd have preferred fewer recipes and deeper histories of the books, recipes are, after all, what cookbooks are all about, and they're certainly the best way to give a "taste" of a cookbook. Occastionally too much of a taste. I could have lived without the concept "oyster ice cream." But anyway.

I wish DuSablon had included a checklist of the books she discusses, though at least bibliographic information is given in the text. There is only bit of vague hand-waving in the direction of the monetary value of these collectible books, which boils down to "the oldest and scarcest ones are really, really valuable." Which, yeah. On other hand, some cult cookbooks of more recent vintage are also really, really valuable. I know values change and change again, but a bit more solid information on values would have been helpful.

But taken as a sort of trivia compendium, there's a lot of good information here on the most notable cookbooks, from the first truly American cookbook by Amelia Simmons ("an Orphan") in 1796, to modern big names such as Julia Child and James Beard. Along the way, she dips into the history of cooking schools, health-food fads, the stories behind such standards as the Fannie Farmer Cookbook and the Joy of Cooking, a bit (but not as much as I'd like) into ethnic cookbooks, charity and regional cookbooks (including a chapter giving advice for the budding amateur compiler), and ambitious multi-volume sets.

She also provides this list:

What Cookbooks Do Americans Collect?

Regional, souvenir cookbooks from every state in the union.
Cookbooks from certain state only.
Ethnic cookbooks: some prefer translations of foreign cookbooks, others prefer American publications.
Books for investment, old and new.
Cookbooks with Christmas motifs to display during the holidays.
Cookbooks bound in certain colors to match kitchen decor.
Military cookbooks, wartime, military post or base wives' clubs, even MRE (Meals-Ready-to-Eat) cookbooks.
Meatless cookbooks, or various types of vegetable-grain oriented volumes.
Genuine African-American or Native-American cookbooks.
Restaurant or chef cookbooks.
Autographed cookbooks, particularly celebrity.
Cookbooks containing red, white, and blue recipes (e.g., blueberry muffins, red cole slaw, Baltimore white cake).
Cookbooks related to the chapter headings in this book, cooking schools gaining in popularity.
Regional souvenir cookbooks from foreign countries visited.
Tomes by personal favorite authors, usually American.
Spiral bound only (or no spiral-bound).
Old ones, the older the better, from all over the world.
Junior League cookbooks.

Now, some of those are terrible reasons to collect. By color? Sheesh. And she doesn't include pop-culture tie-ins in her list, and I suppose that's what I collect, or acquire, or which gravitate to my bookshelves on their own. 8-)

Books like this:

It followed me home! Honest!

--Cheryl

Bathroom Books

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:42:27 GMT

The television watching world can be divided into two kinds of people: Those who get Seinfeld, and those who don't. Most folks who like Seinfeld have their favorite episodes, usually the one where the show all-of-a-sudden made sense to them. For some, it's the Jerry's poofy shirt episode; others love Kramer's escapade with the rickshaw. The Soup-Nazi episode probably comes in as number one for both long-time fans and converts. In my case, the episode that finally got to me was the one where George was forced to buy a book from the big chain bookstore because they caught him with the book in the bathroom. Among guilty pleasures, reading in the bathroom (or looking at large art books, in George's case) is right up there with eating crackers in bed or sneaking a beer at one's office desk.

In our book-loving household we are shameless. Atop the toilet tank is a largish stack of books for the sitter to peruse; next to the toilet in a metal basket is a goodly assortment of magazines. The current books in the pile are the following: About Looking by John Berger. Art-crit that appeals to Cheryl. English Folktales by Neil Philip. Cheryl's interest again. Le Petomane by Jean Nohain and F. Caradel. Biography of a French performer at the Moulin Rouge whose claim to fame was that he could fart loudly and expressively. He was quite a sensation back in the late 19th century. Seemed like appropriate bathroom reading. Curious Moments from Fotoarchiv. Small but thick little photo collection from the archives of a Russian magazine. Lots of oddball photos, some rather inexplicable, like some sort of demented version of Life Magazine. Animologies by Michael Macrone. Small book of animal expressions, like "drunk as a skunk," "loose as a goose," and so on. The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature edited by Philip Martin. Cheryl again. Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things and Panati's Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias both by Charles Panati. Not quite reference books, more than trivia collections, the short articles on assorted subjects are good for occupying one while having to sit still for five to ten minutes. Burma-Shave: The Rhymes, the Signs, the Times by Bill Lossler. Another bathroom activity is referenced indirectly by this bygone product. What could be more perfect short reading than a clever rhyme? Populuxe by Thomas Hine. Enjoyable history of midcentury modernism and the advertising hype that promoted it. Often used as a text book, our copy actually has some highlighting from a previous owner.

Ideally, bathroom books should be small tomes, collections of short essays, or the types of books that can be picked up, opened to almost any page and read for a little while. They should be amusing or at least interesting for all of ten minutes, and easy to put down until the next time they're needed. The mini-historical essay or the science snippet works best for me. George Costanza preferred large folio art books which bemused Jerry (and me) no end.

Some books that don't work well for bathroom reading are sexy books, at least not for the kind of bathroom activity I've been alluding to but carefully not mentioning by name. For our purposes here, The Penthouse Letters collection is not useful. Counter productive and all that. One wants a book that's relaxing, not stimulating.

Other books that I think are totally inappropriate for bathroom reading are medical books (enough said), religious books (seems a bit sacrilegious, and besides, how close to Him to you really want to be?) and cookbooks (classic example of wrong place, wrong time).

What's on your bathroom shelf?

[Note from Cheryl: Red Green would have some guy-to-guy advice about telling the world about your wife's bathroom reading, don't you think?]

How much is my old book worth? Part 3

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:06:05 GMT

"I buy 'em three-for-a-dime and sell 'em two-for-a-nickel. How do I do it? Volume!" This was the wry joke of an old friend of Mr. Cunningham's that pretty well characterized the way he ran his chain of bookshops. Recently, one of my customers used a similar phrase to express something essential about my trade: Better a fast nickel than a slow dime.

When people bring books in to trade or sell, the first question on my mind isn't: How much are these books worth? My first question is: Are these good books? The trick is in defining what makes a "good" book. That is: saleable. Sometimes it's as simple as the book being the most current title by a popular author. Other times, it's a recognized classic that all the reading clubs or school teachers are using. Sometimes it's a cult favorite, not widely popular but with a devoted group of readers who are always looking for that book or that author. When the book in question is nonfiction, a whole other set of questions come to mind. Is this a useful book? Or is the information a bit dated? Is this diet, or this self-help method, or this fad interest still popular or has its time passed? Or is it so old as to have acquired that ineffable quality, quaintness? Is this book a really good one on the topic, or is it kind of so-so, tossed off by the author to make money and put out by the publisher just to fill out a catalog? Is the book very specific about its chosen topic or is it more general? These are among the many factors I consider before I even get to value.

When I do get around to value, the rule of the fast nickel applies first. There's a certain kind of book you'll find listed at high prices on the internet -- but yet, they aren't exactly popular. They may not even be all that rare (giving rise to the term "common rarity"). These books will sell every now and then for a pretty good amount of money, but they sell very slowly. The thing is, they may not sell very much faster even when priced a lot lower. I call these books the slow dime books.

Conversely, the fast nickel books are books that don't necessarily sell for a lot of money but do sell regularly, the kind of books that when offered, I never turn down. I once tried to compile a list of all the fairly common titles that I'd always buy or trade for, the fast nickels. It was an endless list but included everyday copies of books like A Clockwork Orange, Catcher in the Rye, and common editions of Gone With the Wind, most titles by John Steinbeck, most titles by Charles Bukowski, Spanish/English dictionaries, etc., along with a bunch of currently popular HOT authors… and so on. Fast nickel books come in the door, and go out again, at a pretty steady rate.

A lot of high-value books -- maybe most of them -- don't sell very quickly. High value books that sell fast are the real rarities. A true high value rarity that sells quickly (if not instantly!) is the true first edition of Gone with the Wind. However high the price -- and it can get pretty high -- there always seems to be a customer willing to pay a little more for a particularly choice copy. That book is definitely a phenomenon. It's books like GWTW that I think most would-be collectors and amateur book scouts imagine finding when they go book hunting. The first edition of Gone With the Wind is a "fast dime" book.

It's not impossible to find a hot, rare book. But the operative term is "rare." There are many, many knowledgeable dealers and collectors looking very hard for the same fast dime books, so it means you have to be really lucky as a beginning collector to find such books.

Where do you find the fast dime books? Estate sales, Friends of Library sales, book stores, antique stores, garage sales, in other words, all the usual places. They'll be mixed in with the fast nickels, the slow dimes, and of course, the 3-for-a-penny books that outnumber them all.

The scan of Gone With The Wind is from Gone With the Wind: A web site dedicated to Collecting the Book. This site will tell you everything you need to know about collecting every possible collectible edition.

How Much is My Old Book Worth? Part 2

Wed, 23 May 2007 21:05:55 GMT

Oscar Wilde once said (sort of) in one of those epigrams of his, that there are people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Now that we're in the Ebay generation that may be even truer than it was in the late 19th century, although I suspect Wilde was primarily grousing about the commodity art of his era. Anyway, I'm a used bookseller so the monetary value of the books I encounter is pretty important to me.

Many people would love to know how I pick out the choice collectible book out of a big box of assorted books. If only they could learn my secret! But the fact is, I've been picking books out of boxes off-and-on for thirty-five years, so a lot of my secret is based on long familiarity with books. But the important point is that I not only recognize valuable books, I also recognize the very common ones

I've given book-collecting and valuation seminars over the years. The folks who come to these sessions usually ask me for the names of reference books I use and internet sites I go to in order to look up the value of books. But without the ability to recognize the common books, the books that usually are not valuable, these people would be wasting their time. Mr. Cunningham -- my first mentor in this business -- once proposed putting on an educational display at the Antiquarian Book Fair of very common and worthless books: elegantly displayed Readers' Digest Condensed Books, old text books and novels nobody reads anymore, held open with those fancy brass clasps, and with small white cards alongside saying things like "Extremely Common," and "Worthless."

Here are some rules of thumb for identifying the most common books, the ones that are mostly not valuable:

Hardcover fiction and book club books. Fiction is a book-collecting area where newbie collectors and dealers waste a lot of time and energy. Most hardcover fiction has little value. Why? Because many, maybe most of the hardcover fiction books you'll encounter in thrift shops, library sales, and garage sales are book club editions -- published for mail-order sale -- that are more cheaply made than the regular trade editions. Trade editions are the versions of books sold in new book shops. They can usually be identified by the price printed on the front inside flap of the dustjacket; and of course they don't have the words "book club edition" printed on the flap (although not all book club editions identify themselves as such). But even when one has a trade edition of a book of fiction, the odds are still very high against it being worth much of anything. That's because collectors are usually looking for pretty specific editions of works by collectible authors. Most popular works of fiction are light reading and may briefly have value when a particular title is hot -- and not yet issued in paperback. But once it's out in paperback, the hardcover version usually becomes pretty nearly worthless. This applies to the majority of hardcover fiction but there are many specific exceptions.

Readers' Digest condensed books are not collectible. Period. (I realize that I may offend some person out there who does indeed collect Readers' Digests. Sorry. You gotta realize that to most bibliophiles, Digest collecting is a lot like collecting string.)
Dustjackets. Hardcover books that were issued with dustjackets that lack their dustjackets are always reduced in value. An expensive collectible book without its dustjacket will be worth a small fraction of its complete value. Fiction of modest value will be almost worthless.
Condition, condition, condition. As collectibles, books are rather like coins or stamps in that condition is everything. A book that has great value in fine condition will be worth a lot less, usually a very small fraction of its best value, when it's in poor condition. A modest collectible in bad shape will be next to worthless. Another and important point is that book condition appraisal is supposed to be absolute. Allowances should not be made for the age of the book. If a book is 200 years old and in less than good condition, you can't upgrade it to fine because it's old. It's still in less than good condition.
Age. A book's value is not dependent upon its age. It's a true statement that most books are not very valuable. It's also true that most old books are not valuable. There are books issued 200 years ago that are worth far less than some books that were issued two years ago. There are certain kinds of books that are both old and common. Most books published before 1850 were either religious books or school books. And it may sound sacrilegious, but old Bibles are generally not worth much. Most families who could only afford one book would have had a family Bible. Consequently, old leather-bound Bibles from the 1800's are amazingly common. They may have spiritual value and they may have sentimental value if they've been in the family a long time, but typically they won't have very much (or any) collector's value. Usually old family Bibles are in rough shape from heavy use and age. The same goes for old McGuffy's Readers. The rule about condition applies to both.

(More rules of thumb next time.)

--LK

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich - Book Review

Sat, 19 May 2007 17:13:16 GMT

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich
By Adam Rex
(Harcourt, 2006)

This is a great kid's book -- aimed at children aged 5 to 10, which makes me what, exactly? Never mind. But what book lover of any age can resist nonsense verse about monsters, accompanied by hilarious illustrations (or, you know, vice-versa)? As the subtitle says: these are "... stories you're sure to like, because they're all about monsters, and some of them are about food. You like food, don't you? Well, all right then."

Inside you'll find zombies afraid of bees, witches who make balloon-animals out of eels, a baby mummy who won't go to his eternal rest without a story and cookies, and the Wolfman's roomate who complains about the howling and the scratching at the door. The Phantom of the Opera can't compose because he can't get "It's a Small World" out of his head, and Count Dracula doesn't know he's been walking around all night with spinach in his teeth. The Yeti doesn't like being confused with Bigfoot and Bigfoot doesn't like being confused with the Yeti. You know how annoying that can be!

And of course, a hungry Frankenstein finds his cupboard bare, and goes in search of sammich makings. What he finds instead is the usual crowd of angry villagers with pitchforks, who chase him and pelt him with old moldy food. But wait! "They threw tomatoes, pigs, potatoes, loaves of moldy bread. And then a thought struck Frankenstein as pickles struck his head." Now there's a moral: when life gives you garbage, make a sandwich! At least, if you're a monster.

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich is $16.00 new, somewhat less than that at your discerning used bookshop.

Find out more about Adam Rex:
Read an interview at the Harcourt website
Visit his website , www.adamrex.com , which has a link to his very entertaining blog, Editpus Rex.

How Much is My Old Book Worth?

Sat, 05 May 2007 19:57:01 GMT

Cheryl tells me we have to do two or three blog entries a week to maintain a serious blogsite, so I'm going to do my bit and crank out another entry. One of the more persistent questions we in the used and antiquarian book trade get is the title of this entry. I usually get it from customers over the phone. One of the quaint notions many of my customers have is that since I'm in the book business, I must know pretty much every book and everything about books - especially the book they're asking about - off the top of my head. They're often disappointed when I explain to them, as I often do, that I'm not familiar with their book, will need to see it, and may have to do a little research in order to come up with a retail value for it.

It's not that I don't know a lot about books. I really do. It's just that there are so many individual titles that it is impossible for anyone to know more than a relatively small part of the book world. Many people approach book dealing and collecting with deep knowledge of their special interest areas. As a general bookshop owner, my approach is more like the Mississippi River - a mile wide and a foot deep. I know a little bit about a lot of book subject areas but many out-of-print and unusual books haven't come to my attention yet. And I'll probably never have the kind of deep knowledge of any part of my chosen profession to be regarded as a specialist expert.

What I do have is "Finger-Spitzengefühl," a term popularized by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern - two highly regarded antiquarian booksellers - which basically means the art of evaluating antiquarian books by handling, experience, and instinct. The German term (one of those portmanteau words) literally means "a tingling in the fingers." Any one who has ever bought an old book (or any other antique) not knowing much about it but feeling strongly that it has value knows the feeling. Most good booksellers use Finger- Spitzengefühl all the time, even the specialists.

The first time I got to use Finger- Spitzengefühl was when I began in the business with Everett Cunningham, an eccentric antiquarian I worked for back in the '70s. He owned a small chain of book shops in the Bay Area variously known as the Joyce Bookshops, The Gull, and the Franklin Street Store. He used to enlist the help of a number of friends and proteges to almost literally swoop down on local Library Friends book sales and make off with as many good books as we could. Since there could be up to a dozen of us in the group, we became for a time, terrors of the local book sale world.

I clearly remember Everett instructing me to only pick out good quality scholarly books. I was a bit fuzzy about what he meant by that, but it was all very easy-going and good-natured as learning experiences went. I'd walk around the crowded tables of books with a cardboard box in one hand and grab almost any book that looked "scholarly" and "good," then when the box was full, take them back to him to see how I did. Acceptable books would be greeted with comments like "Oh yes,... yes, very good," while the rejects would elicit a dismissive "Oh no! Very common." As I got better at this, I actually developed an instinct that felt almost supernatural, especially since I rarely read any of the books I picked out for resale.

--LK

(Next time: Some rules of thumb for judging books.)

Biblio: Old Books Rare Friends, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, Doubleday 1997.

Book Collecting 101?

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:36:50 GMT

So, hi there! This is Lynn blogging this time. As she said in the first entry, Cheryl is the computer expert and writer of this team, I'm the bookseller and bookcase builder. I suspect Cheryl's entries will mostly be about odd and interesting old books she's currently reading, literary issues she's thinking about, and computer stuff that's annoying her. My entries will usually be about book selling and retail business stuff.

For instance, the other day I had a nice lady in the shop who earnestly asked me if I had any books that could help her get started in book collecting. A little discussion made it clear that I was dealing with an absolute beginner. She knew nothing about book lore, antiquarian or otherwise. Zilch, nada.

I mentally switched to helpful educator mode and began the daunting task of instilling a little book-learning in the woman. I asked questions: Why do you want to collect books? What kind of books do you like to read? Are you interested in collecting because you love some kind of literature or are you looking at this as an investment opportunity?

She wasn't trying to collect for the money-making part of the business. I recommended she collect books she cared about and not worry too much about whether they were great collectibles or not. Unfortunately, there's no one source book of information about book collecting, a book that will tell a beginner everything they need to know about books. Fortunately, I've conducted an in-shop seminar for beginner collectors in the past and Cheryl and I have some hand-outs that give definitions of book collecting terms, source materials, useful websites , etc., that can help the beginner get started. She seemed grateful for the free information.

My customer and I talked about bookmanship for about an hour. She had all the usual questions about first editions, what makes books valuable, and all that. I'm always tempted to point out that if it were easy (book dealing and collecting, that is), everyone would do it, except that it seems like everyone IS doing it. It just seems to me that many people are doing it wrong or at least for the wrong reasons.

I guess what I'm leading to is a question: Should I resume the book collecting seminars in the shop? We did a few of them but they weren't very well attended. I also felt a bit guilty when I had to disappoint a newby by telling them that the really old book they inherited from Grandma really wasn't worth much money, so sorry, but that I'm sure it had sentimental value to them.

So that's the question. Is anybody in the East Bay interested in a book collecting seminar or series of seminars here at the shop? I realize that this is early days to ask this, since we probably don't have more than a few readers but I'll ask the question again in a month or two. And again later on. And I'd be happy to answer, if I can, any questions our readers may have. Thirty years in this business (off and on) and I'm willing to share what I know. Anybody interested?

--LK

Reading Diary: The Associate Hermits, by Frank R. Stockton (CC)

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:48:25 GMT

A while back I decided, because we have a shelf filled with it, to read to Complete Works of Frank R. Stockton. Sure, it's not the same as sitting down (for a loooong time) to read the work formerly known in English as Remembrance of Things Past, but we do what we can.

I'm not reading them in order; I pick a volume with a title that moves me. Currently I'm reading Associate Hermits. It has a very simple plot: a newly-wed couple decide they don't want to go on the wedding journey as is expected of them, and convince the bride's parents, Mr. and Mr. Archibald, to go in their place. The older couple is a bit taken aback by this, but warm up to the idea, and embark on the journey with no fixed plan in mind. This little bit of flouting of social conventions makes the four of them feel as if they're striking a blow for progress and helping to usher in a New Era (well, Mrs. Archibald is a bit dubious).

The Archibalds visit a friend, who gives them the idea to go camping, and so, along with the friend's daughter Margery in tow, they end up at a big hotel in the country, from which guests are sent out on camping trips at various levels of difficulty. The usual variety of eccentric characters are introduced, including the opinionated hotel-keeper, a crabby "lady guide," a crabbier male guide, a mysterious man known as the Bishop, a pair of adventurous young men, and a young man of good family and education who's working as a guide to save up money to become a Naturalist.

About halfway through the book, the sister of one of the adventurous young men joins them. She talks incessantly about Causes, and Progressive Ideas; and she's the one who talks the rest of the campers into becoming "associate hermits" -- to do just as they please without regard to anyone else's desires, and according to their True Natures.

It's a fun read, mostly because Stockton writes even the most banal stories with an undercurrent of smart-alecky snarkiness that keeps you wondering what he's going to poke at next. Stockton's stories don't necessarily go in a direction you expect; and he liked to gently undermine conventional themes. In this case, I wasn't at all surprised that all three of the young men fall for Margery, but much more amused at the say she reacts -- she has hilarious fits of indignant exasperation. She's like a cat who goes from peaceable snoozing in your lap to hissing fury at the top of the drapes. If Margery were a contemporary character, she'd be telling the young men to "get OUT of my FACE."

I haven't finished the book yet; I have no idea how it will end. I mean, I'm sure the characters will give up being hermits and return to their normal routines (except that some of them won't; Mrs. Perkenpine, the crabby lady guide, has apparently discovered she hates being a guide and cooking for others) and possibly Margery will choose one of the young men -- but maybe not. Watch this space for the exciting conclusion!

To be honest, one of the reasons I love reading these novels is that compared to today's fiction, nothing much really happens. I suppose the closest comparison would be to the kind of chick-lit novels in which office politics stands in for intrigue and the characters sort of muddle towards romances that are hardly for the ages. But here I am almost to the end of The Associate Hermits, and nobody's been kidnapped or eaten by bears, the mysterious Bishop is not a serial killer, the hotel is still standing, the weather has been mostly mild with no wildfires, earthquakes, or typhoons, the only things to come out of the lake have been fish, there have been no high-speed chase scenes, explosions, train wrecks, or bombs going off, no children have been abused, no animals mutilated, nobody strangled in the night.

It's very restful.

-------------------------------

The Associate Hermits has been reprinted in an ugly and expensive paperback edition by Kessinger ($27.95), but you can easily find used copies of either the first edition by Harper & Brothers (1989) or as Volume IX of The Novels and Stories of Frank R. Stockton published by Scribners (1900) for $5 to $10. Check Bookfinder. It's not yet available on Project Gutenberg.

Greetings and Salutations!

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:01:10 GMT

We're Lynn, Chief Bookman, and Cheryl, Maid-of-All-Work. Together we're Berkshire Books, a small but eclectic used bookshop located in the wilds of suburban California. Howdy, howdy, howdy.

This is us:

Your friendly proprietors

We're starting a Livejounal to gab about books, things happening in the bookshop, life in the ~~slow lane~~ used book trade, and divers bookish things.

Lynn's been in the used book business since, oh, 1972. He started out working for local bookseller (and legendary eccentric) Everett V. Cunningham, Last of the Empire Builders and owner of the Joyce Bookshop in Concord and the Gull Bookshop in Oakland. Cheryl met him (by way of a matchmaking mutual friend who is also a bookseller, there's just no getting away from booksellers in this life) in 1975, and soon after began to accompany him on his Sunday job slogging "quarter books" (or 10 for $1!) at Everett's book stall at the Napa-Vallejo flea market. Since this involved getting up at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, the matchmaking was obviously successful.

Over the past 30 years, Lynn has continued to work in the trade. Berkshire Books is the third bookshop he's opened, and isn't there something about three times and a charm? You'll find him behind the register six days a week. Cheryl is harder to find, because she works in the background, but she's there. Without her unflagging support and unfailing loyalty, the shop would not -- but you can tell who's writing this, can't you?

More thrilling adventures to come, I'm sure. Just remember, if you're looking for a book someone told you about, but you can't remember the title, or the author's name, or what it's about, Lynn is the man to ask.

Ducking and running,
CC