🔴 Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK No. 84: Bryan Young, Grayshelf Books, Modern firsts, sci-fi, horror

Our guest is Bryan Young of Grayshelf Books in Tomball, Texas. He is making a return visit to Rare Book Cafe. 

Bryan and his wife Kelly specialize in modern first editions as well as science fiction and horror. They will exhibit at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in March. 

Bryan also is a large animal veterinarian. He services race horses in the region of Sam Houston Race Park northwest of Houston. 

In this episode, Bryan discusses some of the amazing book treasures he’s bringing to the Florida book fair, including a pristine first edition of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a signed first edition of The Exorcist (1971), a copy of Moby Dick (1930) with illustrations by Rockwell Kent, and a first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (1964), which was published posthumously. 

Richard Mori (the road warrior) reveals he’s now snowbirding in Florida (as he does every year) and discusses some recent finds, including a beautiful copy of Pollyanna (1913), the first of the popular novel series by Eleanor Porter. Richard notes with pride that Porter is from New Hampshire (his neck of the woods.) Richard and co-host Lee Linn will exhibit at the Florida show in March. 

A SPECIAL REQUEST: 

Please SHARE this program with your book loving friends. If this is the first time you've watched Rare Book Cafe, let us know what you think in the comments. If you're a regular watcher, tell us in the comments how often and what you enjoy about the show. Our Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK series offers short programs, usually on a single topic. Watch for more in the series. 

Co-hosts Ed Markiewicz and Lee Linn are veteran antiquarian booksellers. Ed owns Montgomery Rare Books & Manuscripts in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Lee owns The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia. 

Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK is made possible by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, the oldest and largest rare, used, and collectible book fair in the southeastern United States. 

The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair will be presented March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. More information at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com 

************** 

Music by Kevin MacLeod Hyperfun Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 

************** 

Rare Book Cafe is a gathering of collectors and lovers of old, rare, and collectible books. It is a virtual cafe, accessible anywhere in the world, where the subjects are priceless and the conversation is free. It is truly the book lovers' rendezvous. 

Join us on our Facebook group Book Lovers’ Rendezvous. 

Rare Book Cafe is based in Florida. Rare Book Cafe The Book Lovers' Rendezvous™ 

YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Also as a podcast on YouTube Music #rarebooks 

#collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #bostonbooklovers #booksinboston #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversrendezvous

WHEN YOU FIND A WRITER WHO SPEAKS TO YOU

Avid readers know the truth of western writer Louis L’Amour’s statement. There’s no getting around it: books affect your life, especially if they seem to speak directly to you.

Fans or would-be fans of L’Amour have plenty to choose from. He wrote 100 novels, 250 short stories, and a whole series of books about the Sackett family, who emigrated from East Angelia, England, to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.  

L’Amour is best known for his westerns (frontier stories, he called them). He even wrote stories for Hopalong Cassidy Western Magazine, a short-lived publication produced to capitalize on the Hopalong television program in the 1950s. Those didn’t appear under his name and he denied writing them for most of his life.

There also are novels by him under the names of Tex Burns and Jim Mayo.

He was a favorite of western star John Wayne, whose producer (Robert Fellows) bought the film rights to a short story L’Amour had published in Collier’s magazine in 1952.  It became the basis for Wayne’s 1953 film Hondo. Of course, there were other short stories and novels that became films as well.

There’s so much more L’Amour to discover.  As you can see, you could easily get wrapped up in the whole Louis L’Amour mystique for eons. And we hope you will! ;-D

We hope you’ll come and explore the possibilities at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com 

#collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #bostonbooklovers #booksinboston #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversrendezvous

🔴 Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK No. 83:: A visit to the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Connecticut

Rare Book Cafe co-hosts Ed Markiewicz and Lee Linn engage in a discussion about the importance of the work of abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe as Ed visits her home in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Stowe is best remembered for her bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851-1852), though she was quite a prolific writer who produced 30 books in her lifetime. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not only a bestseller, it was highly influential in turning readers away from support of enslaving African Americans and others but also energizing anti-slavery movements in both the United States and Great Britain. 

You can learn more about the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center here: https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/ 

A SPECIAL REQUEST: Please SHARE this program with your book loving friends. If this is the first time you've watched Rare Book Cafe, let us know what you think in the comments. If you're a regular watcher, tell us in the comments how often and what you enjoy about the show. 

 Our Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK series offers short programs, usually on a single topic. Watch for more in the series. Co-hosts Ed Markiewicz and Lee Linn are veteran antiquarian booksellers. Co-hosts Ed Markiewicz and Lee Linn are veteran antiquarian booksellers. Ed owns Montgomery Rare Books & Manuscripts in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Lee owns The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia.

Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK is made possible by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, the oldest and largest rare, used, and collectible book fair in the southeastern United States. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair will be presented March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. More information at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com 

 ************** 

Music by Kevin MacLeod Hyperfun Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 

************** 

Rare Book Cafe is a gathering of collectors and lovers of old, rare, and collectible books. It is a virtual cafe, accessible anywhere in the world, where the subjects are priceless and the conversation is free. It is truly the book lovers' rendezvous. 

Join us on our Facebook group Book Lovers’ Rendezvous. Rare Book Cafe is based in Florida. Rare Book Cafe The Book Lovers' Rendezvous™ YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Also as a podcast on YouTube Music #rarebooks 

#collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #bostonbooklovers #booksinboston #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversrendezvous

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea: An award-winning treasure to discover at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair

We know the fellow in the image is not Ernest Hemingway and we’re pretty sure it’s not Santiago, the fisherman hero of The Old Man and the Sea. He IS a fisherman and he appears to be on his way to his favorite fishing grounds. When it’s time to pull in the nets, though, we guess he’ll have to come back to the book later. Clearly he’s discovered himself a treasure in Hemingway’s book.

By the time Ernest Hemingway published The Old Man and the Sea (1952), it had been a dozen years since he had had a widely acclaimed novel. That was For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

There had been Across the River and Into the Trees (1950) but that had a lukewarm reception, though it was at the top of The New York Times bestseller list briefly.

It took Hemingway about six weeks to write The Old Man and the Sea, when he finally got to it. He’d heard the basic story some 15 to 20 years before from a fishing guide he knew in Cuba. He first wrote about the tale of an old man who battles a giant marlin in an article for Esquire magazine in 1936.

He sent the draft for the novella around to this publisher and his agent, and to close friends and relatives. He got very positive responses. Originally, he had mind for it to be part of a “sea trilogy”  but it soon became clear the novella could stand on its own.

Hemingway’s friend and agent, Leland Hayward, got the editorial board at LIFE magazine interested and Hemingway agreed to let LIFE publish it two weeks before Scribner’s published it in book form.

Heminway’s work went on to be on The New York Times bestseller list for six months. It received the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and there was special mention of it when Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

You can still find copies of LIFE magazine issue of September 1, 1952 at book fairs and with booksellers. You can also find copies of first editions as well as later printings of The Old Man and the Sea. No promises that there will be any at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in March but it’s highly likely. Other Hemingway works are also likely to be found at the book fair.
 
Come and explore the treasures that abound at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.
 
Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com
 
#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.