February 3 on Rare Book Cafe: As Leonardo reminds us, "“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

Hillsborough, NC’s Mark Alexander’s rare book turf is literary firsts, especially poetry, important fiction, fine printing and publishing ephemera; with a particular interest in signed/inscribed books, association copies, books by and about Vladimir Nabokov, and advanced and uncorrected proof copies. About ⅔ of his 8000-volume inventory is poetry, he says.

His website lists a remarkable array of sub-specialties:

» 19th C

» African-American

» Avant Garde

» Beat

» Biography/Bibliography

» Black Mountain

» British

» British/Scottish

» Broadsides/Art

» Canadian

» catalog1

» Contemporary

» Early 20th C

» Ephemera

» Experimental/Concrete

» Fiction

» Fine Press

» Formalist/New Formalist

» Graphic Novel/Comic

» Haiku/Asian

» Irish

» Letters/manuscripts

» Literary Journals

» Mid-Century

» Modern Literature

» Moderns

» Native American

» New York School

» Objectivist

» Play

» Poetry

» Publishing Ephemera/History

» Punk/Rock

» Radical

» San Francisco Renaissance

» Small Press

» Southern

» Vladimir Nabokov

» War Poets

» World

We’re looking forward to talking with him about these, and many other things, this Saturday, February 3rd’s Rare Book Cafe!

Rare Book Cafe is streamed every Saturday from 2.30 to 3.30 pm EDT. We feature interviews, panel discussion and stuff you can learn about book collecting whether you are a regular at Sotheby’s or just someone who likes books.

The program airs live on Rare Book Cafe’s Facebook page, and remain there after the show.

The program’s regular guests include Miami book dealer, appraiser and WDBFRadio.com’s Bucks on the Bookshelf radio show creator Steven Eisenstein, Thorne Donnelley of Liberty Book Store in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; Lindsay Thompson of Charlotte’s Henry Bemis Books; miniature books expert Edie Eisenstein;  and program creator/producer T. Allan Smith.

We enjoy the support and encouragement of these booksellers:A Bric-A-Brac in Miami;  Little Sages Books in Hollywood, Florida; Liberty Books in Palm Beach Gardens; As Time Goes By, in Marion, Alabama; Quill & Brush in Dickerson, Maryland; Lighthouse Books in St. Petersburg; The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia; A-Bric-A-Brac in Miami Beach; and Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte.

 Rare Book Cafe program encourages viewer participation via its interactive features and video: if you've got an interesting book, join the panel and show it to us! If you’d like to ask the team a question or join us in the virtual live studio audience for the program, write us at rarebookcafe@gmail.com.