ABAA member Kenneth Karmiole has donated $100,000 to the Book Club of California to endow an annual lecture series entitled “The Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trade in California and the West.” 

The lecture series will focus on the book trade — printing, publishing, and bookselling — over the past two centuries. Planning for the inaugural lecture (tentatively planned for the final quarter of 2017) is under way, and details will be announced next year.

Kenneth Karmiole is a philantrophist and antiquaraian bookseller. He has been a member of the Book Club of California since 1976 and is currently serving on its board of directors. The Book Club of California said, “Mr. Karmiole’s leadership and vision are inspiring. His initiative, and in particular his generous endowment — the first of its kind for this institution — will significantly bolster the Book Club of California’s ongoing efforts to engage high-profile speakers and scholars whose research and writing enlarge our understanding of the history of the book and book culture in the West.”

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Kenneth Karmiole talked with the ABAA about his bookselling career in 2014: