During the twentieth century, Los Angeles produced a number of fine printers, Saul Marks and Ward Ritchie being familiar names. Perhaps not as well-known was Richard John Hoffman (1912-1989), a native of the city, with a massive output of printed work. Hoffman himself estimated his production at 15 to 20 items of printed material per week over a career spanning 66 years - that comes close to 50,000 items. Not all of it could be described as “fine printing.” Hoffman worked at Los Angeles City College as a teacher and an academic printer from 1933 to 1959, and was an instructor in Graphic Design and Director of the Printing Management Program at California State University, Los Angeles from 1959 to 1978. Upon his retirement he continued to produce printed work of a very high caliber. Hoffman was not a flamboyant character. In 1924, when he was 12, Richard Hoffman helped Francis C. Lofthouse install a printing press in the belfry tower of Trinity Baptist Church in East Los Angeles so that church bulletins could be printed. He married Lofthouse's daughter Ruth in 1934; they were married for 55 years. Hoffman's first employment was from 1925-1928, at the printing office of George Hillenbrand in Monterey Park, distributing type. He enrolled in Los Angeles Junior College in 1930, and began to work at the College Press as typographic editor for student publications, and edited the 1932 yearbook. Upon graduation in 1933 he became assistant manager of the College Press. At this tim... [more Richard Hoffman: Prolific & Pioneering Printer]

Who killed the book? I did. I killed it when I bought a computer. My relationship with the computer has taken over – certainly it's a major distraction. And, I cannot go back. My addiction to the computer was very clear to me when the electricity went out last month during a terrific wind storm, toppling a majestic tree in our neighborhood, being close to downtown Carlsbad. Computer – dead – no electricity – all was dark, so we lit a candle and opened a book – to read from the printed page. I selected a copy of Robert B.M. Binning's, A Journal of Two Years' Travel in Persia, Ceylon, London, 1857. I turned to this book as it is anecdotal and I read it aloud to my wife. I wanted to share something of what Binning had to say when he traveled to Persia in the mid-nineteenth century, especially as he describes Shiraz, the poet Hafiz and describes Persian culture. There are many things learned from reading: the language of the past was much more colorful than now. Writers have taken on a new form of writing, just as movies seem to take fully advantage of bigger explosions, longer fight scenes, more blood and perceived gore. Many movies today are extensions of video games: “Mad Max Fury Road” was exactly like that – not a video game, but it could have been. The details in books are truer than what is depicted as history on the big screen. It's just like our mail box – so long a form of communication and now seemingly dead. When was the last time you hand-wrote a le... [more Who Killed the Book?]

Happy Leap Day! We thought you might want something to read on this bonus day, so here's a roundup of the latest news from the rare books world. New Penguins Collectors of Penguin Classics -- and we're nearly all de facto collectors of Penguin Classics by the time we've graduated college -- will be excited to see the launch of a new series of "Pocket Penguins," new editions of the most-widely read Penguin Classics. Color-coded by original language, the new series adapts the iconic Penguin Classics color-scheme and design, and will appeal to book-design afficionados. Unpublished Beatrix Potter Story Found Fear not fans of children's books featuring anthropomorphized animals, a lost story by Beatrix Potter, "The Tale Of Kitty-in-Boots" has been found in the Potter archives, and will be published in the fall. New Tolkien Poems Found Tolkien Scholar Wayne Hammond has succeeded in tracking down two poems by Professor Tolkien published in a school magazine in 1936. Lost Mozart-Salieri Composition Resurfaces Fine Books Magazine details a lost musical work composed by Mozart and Salieri together. Perhaps the depiction of their rivalry in the film Amadeus was less accurate than we thought? Van Filled with Rare Books Stolen After California Book Fair Spare a thought for ABAA-member Lawrence Van de Carr (Bookleggers Used Books) whose van full of $350,000-worth of rare books was stolen in Oakland, following the California Book Fair. One of the thieves has been caught as he tried to sell ... [more Rare Book News]

Recently, I became hooked on a video game for the first time since I was a teenager in the early days of home computers. While my children checked Instagram in the evenings, I would fire up Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes on my phone. After my wife began to tease me for becoming as much a phone slave as the kids, I began to think about why this game interested me so much. And then it hit me, it's the digital equivalent of my major collecting interest: vintage Star Wars toys. I've collected Star Wars figures since the late 1970s, when I could actually achieve the collector's ideal: owning a complete set of all the figures in existence. The toy industry quickly moved such aspirations far, far beyond my financial means, but I never fully gave up collecting Star Wars figures even as other interests and obsessions came and went. Today, I have an attic full of vintage Star Wars toys, but they only ever come out a couple of times a year. (As I'm also a book collector and writer, and have worked in the book industry for almost 20 years, the shelf space must go to the book collection, which is very much a working library.) The game I got hooked on is essentially those 4-inch plastic figures come to life. You assemble squads and embark on missions, fighting against the Empire — essentially a continuation of the battles I acted out with my figures in childhood. But what's so addicting is collecting the characters. You get a handful at the start, and must unlock others through game play. S... [more Why Do We Collect?]

Independent rare book expert Rebecca Romney remembers the great Italian linguist and writer Umberto Eco, who died last week. For a young woman who trained as a linguist; who spent more hours in her college years reading in Latin than reading modern novels; who has a particularly delicate spot for Borges, and for Bruno Schultz; and who found her calling in the rare book world, Umberto Eco was like a lodestar. I feel as if I followed him everywhere. After my first experience with his work, I didn't rush out and buy every book with his name on it; I watched life bring me the opportunities instead. I'd stop in a bookstore and begin searching the shelves for an Eco I hadn't read yet. I especially looked forward to plunking down next to the Essay section in a small independent bookstore on that (always and inevitably) hard carpet, boots splayed in odd directions, leaning forward to scan the titles. I searched with the special pleasure of anticipation (even when some older man would tell me with scorn that Umberto Eco is found in the fiction section). Then, I searched after books he had mentioned in his prose. I let his words guide me wherever they would. What is frequently appreciated in many so-called symbols is exactly their vagueness, their openness, their fruitful ineffectiveness to express a 'final' meaning, so that with symbols and by symbols one indicates what is always beyond one's reach. —Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Umberto Eco, 1984 And yes, of course, I d... [more Umberto Eco: In Memoriam]

Eight years ago, shortly after buying Eureka Books, we acquired a collection of Japanese interment posters. These broadsides had been posted in early 1942 throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, notifying “all persons of Japanese ancestry” that they were to be banned from coastal areas. The relocation of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants could not be organized overnight, so the U.S. Army established 110 zones, rolling out the relocation orders over several months. The posters were issued in pairs, two for each zone. First, a “notice” from the Fourth Army, based at the Presidio in San Francisco, alerted Japanese-Americans to contact authorities for instructions. A second poster provided the “instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry,” prohibiting them from moving freely and warning of imprisonment if they did not voluntarily report to relocation centers (often schools or other public buildings). American citizens were treated exactly like Japanese citizens: they were forced into hastily built camps with whatever possessions they could carry. Many lost their homes and farms in the process. A matched set of Japanese internment posters for Los Angeles. Even though the Supreme Court permitted the interment of native-born citizens of Japanese descent, the unbridled xenophobia the swept the West Coast in the early days of the Second World War is now seen as one of the more shameful periods of the 20th century. When my grandmother ... [more Documenting WWII Japanese-American Internment]

Much has been written in the wake of Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister's passing. But lost amidst all the accolades and remembrances of the Motorhead frontman who married the sounds of heavy metal and punk and almost single-handedly invented thrash is the fact that he was the son of a librarian and an avid reader throughout his life (one assumes this was by virtue of nurture, rather than nature, as his father was a minister in the Royal Air Force). One might not expect the artist who wrote “Killed by Death” and “The Game,” the entrance theme song for WWE wrestler Triple H, to be particularly bookish. But as his friend and sometime collaborator Ozzy Osbourne recalled, there was much more to the man than his legendary appetite for booze and speed: “To look at Lemmy, you'd never think he was as educated as he was. People look at the music we do and the way we look, and they go, 'Oh, this bunch is a bunch of yobbos. They don't know what they're doing. They're bad people.' But it's not true. Lemmy looks like an old biker, but he was so well read. He was very up on a lot of things. He was a very clever guy. On his bus on the first tour, he had a plaid suitcase and all he had in there was a pair of knickers and a pair of socks, and the rest was books. When he stayed with us, he'd stay in the library for three days, reading f—ing books.” Though the imagery of most Motorhead songs tended towards the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle Lemmy embodied, literature would from... [more Lemmy: A Real Son of a… Librarian]

It's a town well-known for the Silver Screen—a place where dreamers flock in search of stardom, celebrity, fame, and fortune. But beyond the glitz and glam of Hollywood Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, and movie studio backlots, the City of Angels possesses a rich, complex literary history that transcends genres, styles, and aesthetics. While perhaps not quite the powerhouse of arts and letters as some of the city's East Coast rivals, L.A. has been home to some of the most creative, interesting, and influential writers of the last century. But much like the city itself—a burgeoning, diverse metropolis of different cultures, traditions, and enclaves—discovering L.A.'s fertile literary history requires a little digging, and to truly appreciate the city's place in the American literary cannon, one must be willing to steer clear of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stroll down some side streets and alleyways. As you'll see, what you find there is well worth the trouble. Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) Often associated with the tail-end of the Beat Generation, Charles Bukowski was born in Germany and emigrated to Los Angeles in 1930. Brought up in a lower-middle class household, Bukowski's stories, novels, and poems reflect his working-class background and address the day-to-day drudgery of dead-end jobs, familial discontent, and struggles with drugs and alcohol. While honing his craft in some of L.A.'s most trouble neighborhoods—he was a regular as the famous King Eddy Saloon in the cit... [more Five Los Angeles Writers]

All book collectors have stories of exceptional books found in unpromising circumstances -- we recently reviewed Rebecca Rego Barry's book on the topic, Rare Books Uncovered -- but perhaps few can top Pia Oliver's story of discovering two unknown manuscripts by Charlotte Brontë at a remore California ranch. One weekday morning a few years ago, the phone rang in the bookstore and I answered: “Randall House, Good Morning.” A woman's voice at the other end said “I need some help. We have inherited a lot of valuable and rare books and need help us to evaluate them and dispose of them.” I said, as I usually do “Tell me about the books,” while thinking “Oh yeah, sure, you have rare and valuable books …” We get many phone calls where people tell us that they have a first edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, or Jane Austen's Emma or any number of other books. It's not that people try to deceive or inflate their books, they simply don't know how to tell a used book from a collectible or rare book. And, let's face it, age impresses people. But I digress – back to my story. The lady at the other end of the telephone said “you probably get lots of calls like this but we really do have first editions and valuable books, let me tell you a little about them.” And I said, “please, go ahead.” What she told me peaked my interest, the provenance of the books were intriguing and decidedly “literate” and the way she spoke, very matter of fact, and when as... [more The Thrill of Discovery]

On Black Friday, I got an email from Barnes & Noble trumpeting their (discounted) signed books! The most notable thing about the email -- besides their rather dubious claim to have the greatest selection of signed books “in the world” 1 -- was that this was their primary marketing message, the pitch they were pinning their financial hopes on: signed books were going to make their Black Friday a success. This email highlighted for me something that I've noticed growing over the past few years: a new emphasis on signed books, a new belief in the value of an author's signature. To put this in context, six years ago I worked for a small publisher and spent my time calling on bookstores trying to get them excited about our books. Occasionally, we would have a novel with breakout potential, and an additional challenge would then be to get it picked by a store's first edition club. At the time, you could count the bookstores with first edition clubs on one hand, and have fingers left over. Today, independent bookstores in the US are starting first edition clubs with gusto, and any store worth its salt appears to have at least one and sometimes several focusing on different genres. Why this sudden burst of interest in encouraging book collecting at trade bookstores? Why organize your holiday marketing around your selection of signed books? Quite simply, it's an opportunity to provide something that big internet retailers cannot. First edition clubs typically emphasize literary qu... [more First Edition Clubs]