How does one shop an ABAA Virtual Book Fair? Our Virtual Book Fairs combine the convenience of online commerce with the community of in-person book fairs. Just like at an physical book fair, you will be able to: browse the inventory of many exhibitors, but now with the advantage of only having to check out once no matter how many exhibitors you purchase from! speak with the exhibitors in real time, via digital tools like FaceTime and Zoom. be among the first to have the opportunity to buy newly acquired or cataloged items from the most-reputable dealers in the business. shop the fair for a set time only. Our virtual book fairs last for 2-4 days. So arrive early, make a plan to visit the exhibitors you know, and find the material you want! Browsing Options By exhibitor — Browse your favorite booksellers first (organized alphabetically) By aisle — It's a big fair, and you'll want to see every exhibitor. In this case our aisles correspond to geographic region. By product type — Are you particularly interested in maps or photographs? In search of autographs or ephemera? Hunting certain modern first editions? — This is another way to zero in on the items of most interest to you. By budget — Shop items under $500 and don't get distracted by the big-ticket items (as amazing as those may be). By specific item — A keyword search will quickly show you the item(s) you want without having to spend hours walking the show floor! How is an ABAA Virtual Book Fair different from a... [more How to Shop a Virtual Book Fair]

Edit: You can view a recording of this event here: ---- Please join the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative on Zoom on February 14th, 2024, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Alexandra (Allie) Alvis, Curator of Special Collections, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. Rare books and manuscripts are more than historical objects, they are potent – and elastic – symbols. Shifting cultural values emphasize (and de-emphasize) parts of history to suit their goals, with books frequently being caught up in the mix, but rarely a focal point. Despite being relegated to supporting roles, the material forms of books in popular culture specifically tell us a great deal not only about how non-specialists conceptualize historical periods, but of how they understand book history in general. Enter Pop Bibliography. The most common place people encounter book history is not in the library, but through popular media. Pop Bibliography is the study of the production and reception of bibliography through this media lens, to reverse-engineer the popular concept(s) of the "Old Book" in Western pop culture. This talk will delve into the origins of some of the historical sources of these concepts, and address how they speak to the fetishization of the book as an object in the digital age. February 14th @ 2pm Alexandra (Allie) Alvis - Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library Pop Bibliography: Finding Book History in Popular Media Allie Alvis (she/they) is the Curator of Special Collections at the Wi... [more Brown Bag Series: Allie Alvis]

Save the date for the ABAA Virtual Book Fair: Winter Edition! March 7-9, 2024 www.abaa.org/vbf Explore the finest rare books, manuscripts, maps, prints, and ephemera at our next virtual book fair. The doors will open at 12pm ET on Thursday, March 7 and remain open continuously until 7pm ET on Saturday, March 9. We invite you to shop the virtual booths of leading antiquarian booksellers from around the world and discover their latest acquisitions and rare finds. View participating dealers here... For more information visit: www.abaa.org/vbf... [more Virtual Book Fair: Winter Edition]

The 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair is returning to San Francisco next month. The fair, sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), takes place February 9-11, 2024, at Pier 27 (cruise ship terminal). Widely recognized as one of the world's largest exhibitions of antiquarian books for sale, more than 100 exhibitors from around the world will present rare books, maps, illustrations, historical documents, and ephemera on a vast array of subjects and genres. “Post-pandemic, we are seeing resurgent demand for in-person fairs, where a global community of the top dealers offers the most sought-after collections of books, maps, illustrations, and ephemera. The experience of attending in person is like no other – it's a real-life treasure hunt.” -- Julie Roper, Director of the 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair The fair boasts offerings in every conceivable genre including the first-ever catalog on the history of artificial intelligence (AI) from Novato book dealer and ABAA member Jeremy Norman. Part of this timely collection is an extremely rare, first edition pamphlet published in 1832 by Russian statistician and inventor Semyon Korsakov on what is believed to be one of the first machine-learning devices. Korsakov was a pioneer in the concept of “mechanized thought,” or artificial intelligence. The nearly 200-year-old AI print ephemera will be on exhibit and offered at the purchase price of $35,000. This ext... [more California Book Fair 2024]

In partnership with the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) and the GLBT Historical Society Museum and Archives, renowned queer historian and book dealer Gerard Koskovich joins acclaimed archivist and collector Lisbet Tellefsen to discuss the importance of rare and historic LGBTQ+ archives, books, periodicals, posters and ephemera. They'll share materials from their personal holdings and offer helpful tips for individuals and institutions looking to start or enrich their own collections. Representatives from ABAA members Bolerium Books and Mark Funke, Bookseller will showcase materials for sale at the upcoming California International Antiquarian Book Fair. One of the items will be the original cover art for the groundbreaking LGBTQ+ science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin! (Read a recent article about this item here...) The evening will prepare participants to discover their own treasures at the ABAA California International Antiquarian Book Fair coming up February 9–11 at Pier 27 in San Francisco. More details available here... Event date: Jan 25, 2024, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM Location: The Academy, 2166 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94114 Tickets: $20 General Public / Academy members free Reserve your general admission spot for this limited-capacity indoor event here... Panelists: Gerard Koskovich Gerard Koskovich is a San Francisco–based public historian, curator, and book dealer. He has published widely in English and French... [more Collecting Queer—An Inside Look at the World of LGBTQ+ Rare Books, Archives and Ephemera]

Join us for an in-person Bibliography Week Showcase at the French Institute: Alliance Française, Monday, January 22, 2024. Opening Hours: 10:30am-4pm The Showcase features 30 dealers displaying printed and manuscript material from the Middle Ages to the present day. Admission is free! Browse exhibiting dealers here… Location: French Institute: Alliance Française 60th Street between Park and Madison, NYC. The Bibliography Week Showcase is hosted with the Bibliographical Society of America and the Grolier Club and is part of Bibliography Week 2024. Learn more... [more Bibliography Week Showcase 2024]

Edit: You can view a recording of this event here: -- -- The Brown Bag Lunch Series, presented by the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative, is a series of short virtual talks covering various topics, from crash courses in areas of expertise to best business practices. Please join the Gender Equity Initiative on Zoom on December 13th, 2023, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Megumi Hill and Mårten Söderblom Saarela from Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller Inc. December 13th @ 2pm Megumi Hill & Mårten Söderblom Saarela - Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller Inc. Manchu Books and Japanese Books CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Dive into a survey of Manchu Books and Japanese Books by two experts from Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller, Inc. Megumi Hill will present the survey of Japanese Books. The survey of Manchu Books will be delivered by Mårten Söderblom Saarela, a newly joined expert in Chinese and Korean Books and MSS at the firm. Megumi K. Hill Megumi is a graduate of Rikkyo University in Tokyo with a major in early Japanese literature. Mårten Söderblom Saarela Mårten received his PhD from Princeton University and has worked at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, for the past four years, most recently as an associate research fellow. His research centered on the cultural and intellectual history of language in late imperial China. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and was trained in Sweden, France, t... [more Brown Bag Series: Manchu Books and Japanese Books]

Edit: You can view a recording of this event here: -- -- The Brown Bag Lunch Series, presented by the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative, is a series of short virtual talks covering various topics, from crash courses in areas of expertise to best business practices. Please join the Gender Equity Initiative on Zoom on November 8th, 2023, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Joyce Kosofsky from Brattle Book Shop. November 8th @ 2pm Joyce Kosofsky - Brattle Book Shop "How to keep a used bookstore running—It's a business." People always say that they'd love to run a bookstore. Joyce has been doing that (along with her husband, Ken Gloss) since 1978. There's not a lot of sitting around and reading (if any). It's a lot of work. Physical and mental. There's stocking stock (books are heavy), dealing with customers and other dealers, and poop in the lot. There's the physical aspect of the building's upkeep and the emotional toll when it all burns down (literally) and starts all over from scratch. What Joyce would like to share is a brief timeline of the past 45 years of running a used bookshop with all its faults. Joyce Kosofsky grew up in Boston and attended UMass/Amherst, graduating with a BA in Journalism. She worked as a cub reporter for a local daily newspaper, then at an advertising trade journal, and then at the Boston Phoenix newspaper. Joyce decided she did not like journalism, so she took a break. Ken (her husband) asked her to help out at the bookshop. That was in 1978... [more Brown Bag Lunch Series: Joyce Kosofsky]

The 45th Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's Back Bay, October 27-29, 2023. (More details here...) Celebrating its 45th year, this three-day event features fine and rare printed material from around the globe, including illuminated manuscripts, modern first editions, childrens books, ephemera, photographs, maps and autographs, as well as antiquarian books on a vast array of topics brought to you by members of the ABAA and ILAB. Here is a selection of the items our exhibitors will be offering at the Fair... . Child's own Book. Kindlein's Lieblingsbuch. Le favori des enfants. Images indéchirables. Indestructible pictures. Anzerreissbare Bilder. Small 4to (200 × 165 mm), pp. ; illustrated throughout, hand-coloured lithographed leaves; original publisher's illustrated cloth (reproducing the title-page), a few marks. First edition of quite possibly the first German children's book to be printed on cloth, thereby making it 'indestructible' for giving to small children. Geissler (1802–1872), a children's book illustrator, began publishing children's books and ephemera in Nuremberg in 1830. The fact that the title is given in English, German, and French shows he must have had an eye on the export market. Offered by Simon Beattie Ltd., booth 116. Reichenbach (Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig) Album of drawings and watercolours of nocturnal birds, , c.1880 An album with 127 fine original illustrations of nocturnal birds, most in wat... [more Boston Book Fair: Featured Items]

ABAA-member Kenneth Gloss, an internationally known rare book specialist and appraiser who runs the Brattle Book Shop in Boston and appears on national TV, will speak at New York's Grolier Club to talk about the "improbable finds" of his decades-long career. The presentation will take place on Thursday, October 5, 6:00 pm at The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY, and is open to the public. As Ken reflects on the surprises he's experienced while bookselling: “One day you find yourself drinking from Thomas Jefferson's coffee service, and the next day you're fumigating your truck of fleas. The house you're visiting could contain a handful of Turner watercolors, or a roomful of live ammunition.” His upcoming talk will cover spectacular finds, such as T. S. Eliot's copy of The Great Gatsby and Isaac Newton's copy of Principia Mathematica. On a particular occasion, Ken remembers, “a customer walked into the Brattle Book Shop with a Nuremberg Chronicle and a Kelmscott Chaucer!” And he's experienced some unexpected challenges, too—when he was invited to look at “about 500” books, Ken instead encountered three floors of more than 20,000 nearly perfect dust-jacketed books that he simply had to buy (and figure out how to transport). The unusual and the extraordinary will abound in this illustrated lecture. Ken will talk in part about the history of his historic bookshop (www.brattlebookshop.com/about...), which goes back to circa 1825. He is a second-generati... [more Grolier Club in-person lecture: Ken Gloss]