Rare Book Cafe 3.0: Owen Felix O'Neill and the $25 million book -- an hour of fun with our favorite Tipperary bookseller

Welcome to the first in the series of Rare Book Cafe 3.0. Our guest for this episode was Owen Felix O'Neill, a book collector and sometimes bookseller in Tipperary County, Ireland.

This is the return of Felix to our show after a long absence. He first visited our show during the original Blab episodes of Rare Book Cafe. In this episode, Felix discusses some newly acquired 1800s-era travel books covering parts of the United States and South America that he had rebound using period vellum from old land deeds.

Felix also discusses his latest project, a plan to digitize the Tyndale Bible in its original form, and publish it, making it available to scholars, libraries, and others. The digital reproduction of the book is made from Felix's personal volume, which he says is the only complete Tyndale in the world.

Rare Book Cafe originated on Blab.im in 2015  but the platform shut down in August 2016. The program was on hiatus for several weeks and in the fall broadcast the first episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0 on YouTube (streaming live on Google Hangouts on the Air).
Now the program has moved to the BeLive.tv platform on Facebook Live. The program is live streamed on the Rare Book Cafe page on Facebook and is recorded and posted on YouTube and the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair blog on Blogspot.com

Rare Book Cafe is the first live streamed regularly scheduled program devoted to antiquarian books, book collecting, and related subjects.

It is hosted by Steven Eisenstein, owner of A-Book-A-Brac Books in Miami Beach, Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books in Palm Beach Gardens and Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, , who also serves as associate producer. Edie Eisensein is featured regularly discussing miniature books. The program also features a rotating cadre of guest hosts.

T. Allan Smith is creator and executive producer.

Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, celebrating its 37th year on April 20-22, 2018 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. Florida Antiquarian Book Fair features more than 100 booksellers offering rare, used, and collectible book, vintage prints, antique maps, vintage photographs, autographs, and collectible printed matter of all kinds.

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