A Day at the Antiquarian Book Fair

Yesterday, I spent an enjoyable afternoon at the San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print and Paper Fair. Having worked my first seven years after college for two distinguished rare book businesses, it was a happy homecoming. I also had the pleasure of reminiscing and learning about the state of today's antiquarian book world with my friend and former colleague, Jennifer Larson.

Antiquarian book fairs are amazing places to visit. Booth after booth features dealers from around the world showing off their best and most interesting wares. It could be a first edition of The Great Gatsby in its original paper dust jacket or a beautiful set of Shakespeare in handsome leather binding. I saw original drawings by Dr. Seuss, a case full of tiny miniature books, the first issue of Sports Illustrated (August 16, 1954), and a signed portrait of Margaret Thatcher. How about Harry Potter in the original British editions or a 1937 Coronation Souvenir book from the UK? Everywhere I walked there was something fascinating.

I was especially impressed by an amazing two-volume set of gorgeous plates of cities and monuments. Joan Blaeu's Theatrum Italiae from 1663 was so mind boggling that it took a 10-minute explanation from Paul Michael Dowling of Liber Antiquus to fully grasp the wonder of this item. Price? $75,000. See the photo.

Rare books can cost a lot, and so much is dependent on the true and perceived rarity. Jennifer explained how just as the Internet has made almost anything available to anyone anywhere with a checkbook, it has also discouraged some collectors, who are now aware of exactly how many copies of a book are available for sale at the moment. It reduces the urgency to own an item when it seems so easily found.

Despite this ease of location, there are still many surprises to be found. Don Lindgren, of Rabelais Inc., specialists in books on food, wine and the arts, explained that he can go into a shop that claims to have nothing he'd be interested in and turn up some treasures. Not everything is catalogued online, so the hunt continues.

I was impressed by the Judaica I found at Eric Chaim Kline's booth. Kline is a longtime expert in this field, and he kindly showed me some amazing old Hebrew bibles, books on Hebrew typography, and, two special treasures from his display case. The first was a Passover Haggadah from 1946, a slim paper volume printed right after World War II. It contained some shocking and painful depictions of concentration camps and the other horrors of the day. On a happier note from that period, a 1948 colorful book presented the story of emigration to an Israeli kibbutz for children, with sweet illustrations that would have helped the kids adjust to the move.

So much to see and talk about. How about a hand-drawn cartoon and letter from a San Quentin Prison inmate from 1935? A book from Adolf Hitler's personal library, with his bookplate (no thanks). I saw a sample book with hundreds of tiny skeins of silk in a rainbow of colors ($495).

Thanks to the Bonnetts of Windgate Press for sharing that delicious sandwich. Wayne was showing some beautiful automotive prints he's developing that may become available someday.

My community, San Francisco, hosts a major book fair every year in February. Be sure to see the 2013 fair, or look up one of the many dealers in your community. If you're in the Los Angeles area, their big fair, in Pasadena, runs February 10-12, 2012. You're sure to find something wonderful.

Booklamp Helps You Find the Books You Love

Have you ever used Pandora.com to find music you like? It's great for helping you discover performers and recordings that are similar to what you enjoy. I've got many "stations" set up that track on a performer--or even a single song and have learned of many new artists that sound a lot like ones I already know and love.

Well, it turns out you can do that with books too! My wife told me about Booklamp.org, which is the public face of the Book Genome Project, operated by Novel Projects, Inc.. This company was founded in 2003 to start the initial development around the Book Genome Project. which identifies, tracks, measures and studies the features that make up a book using today's massive computational power. The project is managed and developed by a team based out of Boise, Idaho, but has input from many other places.

The whole idea of a genome project is to discover the "StoryDNA" of books based on their content--not on popularity--and analyze and detect what's in there. If Pandora has more than 400 ways to analyze a song (major/minor key, presence of harmony, fast/slow, string accompanyment, etc.) the Booklamp people do the same kind of thing. Fundamentally, a story is made up of many components, but a good portion of it has to do with setting and content, which StoryDNA tracks.

You type in a favorite author or book and it will give you recommendations based on its research and its continually growing database. The project is non-profit and costs nothing for you to use. Like Pandora, the more you use it the more benefit the project receives as well. If you really want to help them, put them in touch with publishers--that's a major source of their information.

As a test, I put in A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin, a popular book in the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. The major ingredients it found were Medieval weapons and armor, Military campaigns, features of the body (?), Nature/Fields/Hills, and Horses. It processed my request and found a list of similar books, including other George R.R. Martin books first and them titles by Lynn Flewelling (Hidden Warrior) and others. I recently read A Clash of Kings, so if I wanted to set up a Fall reading list I'd be set.

Read What You Aren't - A Clash of Kings

I'm a modern person, hooked up to cell phones, computers, cars, satellite radio. I shower every day. I am no soldier. I shop at Safeway. Nice, but nothing compared to the adventures and horrors of reading George R.R. Martin's amazing epic books.

At 1:45 a.m. last night, I finished A Clash of Kings--his 1,009-page second installment in the A Song of Fire and Ice saga. Whew. So much bloody fighting, grotesque battle scenes depicted in the kind of detail that only a book can provide. A movie shows you but a book tells you, and some details, by being described, let you fill in the grisly blanks. Severed limbs, spurting blood, crushed in heads on pikes, rapes, explosions, castle intrigue, main characters being killed... You never know what's coming next.

George likes to weave several stories into one book, so you hear about different members of the Stark family, other kings and other realms. You see the battle from the view of different commanders. Family members don't know whether their kin are dead or alive (but we do--well, most of the time). That's why I keep turning those pages. (My wife is reading them on her Nook reader).

So why am I eagerly anticipating the THIRD book? Well--it's nothing like real life--and it's safe. I didn't think I was that kind of guy, but I want to know what will happen to the surviving characters. George left things in the middle of a post-battle mess, a clever trick to get you to read the next installment.

It reminds me of the Harry Potterthon I did a couple of years ago--seven books over one summer. But this is MUCH more gruesome (well, those last couple of HP books were pretty graphic...).

When I was 10, I spent the summer reading baseball player biographies. This is different--but has the same effect. It takes you away. My life is full and things that are good, but there's nothing like a good read.