ABAA-member Stuart Bennett (Stuart Bennett Rare Books) talks with Walter Edgar about about his novel, The Charleston Gambit (2021, Evening Post Books) -- recorded at the Charleston Literary Festival in November of 2021. Listen here... [more Stuart Bennett Interviewed About His Novel The Charleston Gambit]
Wouldn't you like to automate the process of searching our members' listings for the books or other items you desire? Well, you can easily let us do the searching for you! WANT LISTS Customers can set up “Want Lists” — saved searches for the books or items you are actively hunting for — which alert you (by email) anytime a new copy is listed or an existing listing changes substantially (new price, image added, etc.). You can tailor the frequency of these emails to suit your needs: Daily emails let you know within hours of any change or new copy being listed. Weekly or monthly emails will send you a digest of all new titles listed in the preceding week or month (and not sold by the time the email is sent). The default setting is for daily emails (as that's what ABAA members prefer). If you're actively trying to collect a popular ni... [more Let Us Do the Rare Book Searching for You!]
Robert Jordan was the best-selling author of The Wheel of Time fantasy series, and (because I need to get my utter impartiality out of the way at the start) one of my favorite authors. I've collected his books for the past 25 years. If you're unfamiliar with The Wheel of Time, think of it as a 14-volume The Lord of the Rings set at a future point in Earth's history when society has regressed technologically and forgotten most of our history -- but discovered magic, naturally! Total sales for the series are estimated to be in excess of 80 million copies, although those figures are several years old and at least one of his publishers has suggested the estimate is on the low side. With a total readership of that magnitude, it seems likely there are many people collecting Jordan's books and related items, so we have assembled this guide to th... [more Collecting Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time]
Armed Services Editions, small-format paperback books distributed to US servicemen during WWII, are credited with achieving a great deal: not just with improving morale among the troops, but also with revolutionizing the post-war publishing industry, making certain books into classics, and expanding the American middle class. The book When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win WWII, by Molly Guptill Manning, reveals the largely forgotten story of the Armed Services Editions. When the US entered the war after Pearl Harbor, librarians initially got behind a nationwide book drive, the Victory Book Campaign, which aimed to collect 10 million donated books and supply them to the troops. Although this campaign was eventually successful, it took time, and many of the donated books were too old or heavy to be of use. A group of publis... [more Collecting Armed Services Editions]
Meet the latest antiquarian booksellers accepted as members of the ABAA. Full Members: Keith de Lellis, Keith de Lellis Gallery LLC, New York City, NY Beginning in 1970 at the age of 15, Keith de Lellis began dealing in Fine Art Photography and has done so continuously over the past 50 years. De Lellis has watched the interest in photographs grow from an exceedingly small specialized market into a major field of collecting. He started dealing when he was in junior high school and was soon selling to the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art along with collectors some of whom are long forgotten others who are now legends to those familiar with some of the early figures in the world of collecting art photography. The first thirty years operating as a private dealer in Manhattan and beginning in 1998 as gallery owner of the Keith de Le... [more New Members of the ABAA]
We asked the winners of the 2021 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest to introduce themselves, and learned about some fascinating books and collections along the way! First place: Jessica Camille Jordan (Stanford University): Could you give us a brief description of your collection? My collection is comprised of works that bear the illustrative or graphic design work of husband/wife duo Leo and Diane Dillon, whose career together spanned six decades. Most of the objects in my collection are books, but there are also comics, records, posters, and more. The earliest items I have are science fiction pulp magazines from the 1950s, and the most recent is a 2019 picture book called Love and the Rocking Chair, an autobiographical story they were working on at the time of Leo's death in 2012, and which Diane later completed. What first int... [more Meet the 2021 NCBCC Winners]
The ABAA is proud to announce the winners of the 2021 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. First: Jessica Camille Jordan (Stanford University) for "Six Decades of Leo and Diane Dillon." Second: Read W. Brown (New York University) for "The Serious Business of Fun: A Collection of Books on the Video Game Industry." Third: Shannon D. Bohle (Johns Hopkins) for "Life through Space and Time: A Personal Journey through Modern Science, Collecting Hand-signed Autographs, Manuscripts, and First Editions." Essay Award Joseph E. Hiller (Duke University) for his essay "Como un detective salvaje: Gathering Small Press, Experimental, and Untranslated Latin American Literature." The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is jointly administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Biblioph... [more 2021 NCBCC Winners]
It is with great pleasure that the Northern California Chapter (NCC) of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) announces the winners of the 2021 George Robert Kane Memorial Scholarship, Nicholas Pillsbury and Cecelia Shaw. This year, we had two exceptional candidates who were quite similar. Both were highly recommended, both are currently working as booksellers, and both want to continue in the librarian/special collection field. Because the scholarships combined were less than we normally expend due to the courses being online, we decided to offer both of them a scholarship as they were both so deserving. Nicholas is currently working at Bad Animal Books, a combination bookstore / wine bar / restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA, and is handling all of the rare books online. His experience as a librarian and his M.L.I.S. educa... [more 2021 George Robert Kane Memorial Scholarship]
Meet the latest antiquarian booksellers accepted as members of the ABAA. Full Members: Victoria Dailey, Dailey & Turner Rare Books & Ephemera, Los Angeles, CA Victoria Dailey has rejoined the ABAA as a full member after being an Emeritus Member for a short time. In other news, Victoria has recently been named the Deputy Editor of The Book Collector. Daniel Moyer, Daniel / Oliver Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Dan Moyer is one half of the Brooklyn based gallery Daniel / Oliver (along with co-owner Ollie Lott). Daniel / Oliver handles photographic material and other works on paper, primarily unique collections and comprehensive archives, which chronicle American stories. Dan Moyer is also a playwright and screenwriter. His play “Half Moon Bay” premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC and he has written for the Facebook Watch show “Limetown.... [more New ABAA Members]
The 2021 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is now accepting entries! Established in 2005 by Fine Books & Collections Magazine to recognize outstanding book collecting efforts by college and university students, the contest is now sponsored by The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress. The contest aims to encourage young collectors to become accomplished bibliophiles. Book-collecting competitions are held at more than three dozen colleges and universities across the United States, and some of these contests have been conducted for many decades, dating back to Swarthmore College's first competition in the 1920s. All college or univer... [more National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest 2021]