The last couple of weeks have seen me buying a number of books on the subject of books. Of course I have already acquired a few on this theme over the years; Anne Fadiman's wonderful Ex Libris, for instance, maybe another half-dozen books about libraries, for instance Matthew Battles' lovely Library: An unquiet history. Recent purchases in this area have been more academic - Eliot and Rose's A Companion to the History of the Book, Finkelstein and McCleery's A Book History Reader and Eisenstein's The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Even books like Reynolds and Wilson's Scribes and Scholars count, as does the beautiful Introduction to Manuscript Studies by Clemens and Graham and Pearson's Books as History.
Today's purchase - the standard Saturday purchase - is less academic than recently but still on the same broad theme. Goldstone's Used and Rare: Travels in the Bookworld, Ellis's At home with Books: how booklovers live with and care for their Libraries, a different Ellis, Book finds: how to find, but and sell Rare Books, and Bauman's Rare Finds: A Guide to Book Collecting.
Last week I picked up Blackwell's latest Rare Book Catalogue for Greek and Latin Classics. I was surprised by how much stuff in here was quite reasonably priced. And last week I visited the home of one of Linda's clients and had a good browse through their book collection which was full of old and really valuable stuff but not really my areas of interest. I remain in the grip of a fairly standard bibliomania!
At some point, I expect to "diversify my investments" and become a book collector, with the aim of spending about £30,000 on this. When I started my own business in 2001 and hoped for great riches, this was entirely so I could acquire a fantastic books collection, and the failure of that venture was mainly a disappointment for book-buying reasons. Still I currently spent £30-£40 a week, so my collection does grow nicely
Given the large number of books about books, is the time ready for a book about books about books?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment