Northshire Books, Manchester, VT

Northshire Books

Last spring I took a day-long drive up to Vermont in search of a...well, diner!  I'll write about that in another, upcoming post.  But during that drive, while coming back home to NY, I decided to drive through Manchester, Vermont.  And of course, Vermont, being the bookish place it is, I found plenty of bibliographic opportunities.  This bookshop, Northshire Books, was a delightful place, which had a fine selection of materials, as well as an outstanding staff, which was outgoing and informative.  When I arrived, a very nice woman was demonstrating the Espresso Book Machine, which is a print on demand device, that will print your own book within 10 minutes, in some cases, just 7 minutes!  Outside the shop was this curious sculpture,  with metallic arms, a base-body of books, and a post-box head of Thomas Jefferson...with a seagull perched atop!?  I also only realized after taking this photo, that there's a guy reading behind the sculpture!  Well, stay tuned for further adventures in the bookish wander-trade!  And if you're ever in the area, check out this bookshop and their famed Espresso Book Machine.  (You can get real espresso around the corner, if you so desire, too).

Mini Book Reading Statue Near Dykman

The Observationally Bizarre?  Or Not...

Simply put, I contribute some curiously odd things to this blog.  This post may constitute one of those observations.  Last year, while I was walking up near Dyckman Street (pron. DIKE-man) in upper Manhattan, I spotted a little patch of earth, lined by a picket fence along the miles of NYC's cemented sidewalks.  Someone had created a little garden with small statuary.  As I looked it over quickly, I noticed with some surprise a statuette of a (child?) reading a book.  Of course, I had to take a few photos of this, including a close-up, which appears to show this tiny statue READING a book!  Though, sadly, one of its hands seems to be missing.  This microcosm of a garden is surely a curiosity, and somehow a world created by someone with designs and intentions to develop a small plot of un-used urban dirt and emptiness into something to break the monotony of cemented urbanity.  I really wonder what Jane Jacobs would have said about this one!

NYC Book Art

A Modest Observation

We all see examples and expressions of "book art" wherever we go.  And I'm generally a pretty enthusiastic supporter of these artistic and creative endeavors.  I remember a few years ago, when I visited the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, I saw this incredibly crafted "antique" Encyclopedia, from the 1920s, which a clever paper artist had taken a scalpel to, and turned it into this miraculous Borges-style menagerie.  It was a veritable paper-zoo of cut outs from the Encyclopedia's animalistic entries!  Indeed, quite amazing.  I don't recall who the artist was, and I now wish I'd written down both the name of the artist and the name of the artist's work.  Perhaps one day I'll find this person.  In the mean time, I share with you this curious image I took last year, sometime around (and near) the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC.  I saw this artist, who'd taken the covers of books, and turned them into a masterful palette of...well, yes, almost another menagerie!  Take a look for yourself.  Here too, I did not get the name of this artist.  I guess I've learned my lesson.  From now on, I ought to document more than just the image, and really pursue...metadata!

The NY Antiquarian Book Fair 2012

New York Antiquarian Book Fair

As I've surely mentioned before, I often feel like I need to get my bibliographic affairs in order, because I have such a backlog of photos to post and blogs to write that I feel I'll never catch up.  Yet, as I've slowly gone through this list of items, I've decided to include those topics, which will surely go "out of date," if I don't write about them soon.  Among the "many" is this set of images I took last spring at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair.  This is quite the event, and I managed to get a few tickets for this in 2012.  Surprisingly (to me), I ran into a handful of colleagues from around the country.  I guess this shouldn't be too surprising, since once you're in any field long enough, you find your circle of colleagues expands into so many different areas that you're bound to meet someone you know at one of these events.  

Part of the incredible nature of the Antiquarian Book Fair, especially the one held in New York, is that the range of collectors and buyers is so large, but perhaps even more surprising to the first time attendee is the grandeur of the space it's held in (the Armory~which you can see images of below), as well as the  amazingly and astonishingly broad range of bibliographic antiquity represented.  ...and not to mention the rarity and cost of such items would undercut the value of this experience!  In fact, one of the first items I came across was a medieval era volume, which was being sold for something like $390,000!  Some would say this is "change" in some circles, but remember, most universities can't really afford this.  And it demonstrates both the variable and alternate markets that exist, especially among private collectors with deep pockets.

We'll soon again be coming upon the NY Antiquarian Book Fair, so if you have any interest at all in the field of rare volumes such as these, get a ticket and come for a visit.  You won't be disappointed in the event.  Plus, you'll see more tweed and tortoise shell glasses in one place than I'm sure most of you have seen in years!

Word Up Books, Washington Heights

WORD UP BOOKS

This has been long in coming--as many of my posts.  I've found that over the years I'll snap a photo of a bookshop or some other bookish thing, and then let it lay dormant for a very long time in my camera or photo files.  I realized I'd taken these photos when I first came to NY, sometime during the summer of 2011, while exploring the area of Washington Heights in NYC.  I remember walking down Broadway near 180th, just near the George Washington Bridge, in search of some local food.  I remember finally finding a nice little Salvadoran restaurant, where I enjoyed some cool beverages and steaming "fresh fried" foods.  Nearby to this restaurant, I passed this little bookshop.  It seemed like a start-up, or stand-alone place.  And in truth, I'm not sure it actually still exists.  But that's part of the role this blog plays: documenting bibliographic and bookish places, which come and go.  Places that are representative of a community, yet sometimes fade into local memory, or are simply forgotten.  I'll have to trek up to that neighborhood again, and see if it's still there.

A Book in a Tree?

A Hike in the Woods

Greetings All... and a long return!  As many readers know, I haven't posted for a long while, but am slowly catching up.  For those interested, I did start another blog already a year ago, The Traveling Schubert Society, which follows more musical interests, curiosities, reviews, and intrigues!  The blog is constantly evolving and includes entries as disparate as academic discussions of Schubertian history, reviews of NYC concerts, regional composer profiles, an occasional recounting of Upper West Side salons and house parties (even Schubertiades!), as well as nature and street sounds.  If you're interested, please visit the site and see what we're up to.

Today, though, I wanted to go through some of my photo archives and retrieve a few items of interest, mostly images and bookish stories I've done over the last year or so.   I'll be brief for now, as I hope to catch up and provide more entries this month.  

Below, you'll find a curiosity, a geo-cache--at least, that's what I presume it to be.  Last spring, if I remember correctly, I'd taken a walk with my mother on the east side of the Hudson, near Bard College, and walking upon the path in a pine grove, near the river, she discovered a plastic box, which contained various objects, including some books.  Though, the main book was a journal of sorts, where travelers in this wood could write comments or leave sentimental items.  We did look, and found some very interesting things.  But soon, we packed it and closed the box, and returned it to its tree interior... and continued on our lovely walk.  

You never know what you'll find, then, in these woods, or any other...

Boston Book Depot

Books, books, everywhere!  I spotted this little box...actually, this BIG box in the corner of a parking lot in Quincy, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, at the local YMCA.  I wonder what sort of donations they get?  According to their website (www.GotBooks.com), there are some 491 of these containers out there as of August 2012, and the charity distribution is over $1.3 million.  Who said that "books" weren't "big business" any more?