From Swamp Apes to Swamped Stock, it's another jam-packed week of book adventure on Rare Book Cafe

The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is only 61 days away from this Saturday, and Rare Book Cafe is full of Sunshine State book folk:

-Born in Orlando, Florida, Rob Smith Jr is a regular at the Book Fair, turning out drawings of fairgoers all weekend long. He started drawing caricatures at theme parks while still in high school. He attended the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida, the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, and Rollins College in Orlando.

Hired in 1985 as a draftsman and artist for the City of Orlando by Jeff Parker- who went on to work with Mike Peters on the Mother Goose and Grimm syndicated comic- Smith contributed editorial cartoons to the Winter Park, Florida Observer and did caricature work at places like Walt Disney World and Gatorland.

Smith joined the National Cartoonists Society in 1995. He has also been a member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.

His editorial cartoons are conservative in tone and focus on social issues as well as politics.

Smith drew syndicated editorial cartoons for DBR Media and a weekly cartoon for the Glenn Beck Program. His work has been recognized with awards from the Florida Press Association.

Smith currently contributes editorial cartoons to various sources, including the Glenn Beck Program, the late Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and various other conservative websites.

He created Swampy's Florida in 2005 with a focus on Florida history and travel. There are currently over a dozen Swampy's Florida books, 54 prints, 17 greeting cards and 2 DVDs. His website gives a colorful example of the range of his work.

Smith’s last visit to the Cafe, in January 2016, inadvertently alarmed some viewers as he turned out to be phoning in from a Civil War Battle reenactment, talking to us via his phone at the end of a selfie stick as rifles popped and cannon boomed (the carnage begins at 13 minutes):



-Steve Bolter, of Palm Coast’s Sleuth Books, is Florida’s undrownable rare book dealer. After a quarter-century in the business, Steve and his wife, Pam, survived two ruinous hurricane-driven storms and floods in an eleven-month period during 2016-17 (a gofundme.com appeal organized by friends is still open).

Sleuth Books specializes in Juvenile Series, Children's books, Florida History, Sports, Mystery, and Animals. Sleuth is located in the beautiful Hammock, right off of A1A in Flagler County.

Here’s a 2014 Book Fair video in which Bolter describes a favorite book.

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.