Friday, March 25, 2022
It won't be long now!
The long wait is almost over. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair gets under way on April 1 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. Booksellers from all over the country will be on hand to show rare and collectible books, vintage maps and prints, and collectible ephemera, photographs, and autographs. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is the oldest and largest book fair in the Southeast. You can purchase tickets online at Eventbrite.com or at the door.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Three days for book lovers: 39th annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair to feature books to fit every budget and taste
Specialty booksellers from across the United States will offer their wares at the 39th annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg April 1-3, 2022. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is the oldest and largest antiquarian book fair in the Southeast, and among the largest in the country. The annual book fair returns after a two-year pandemic hiatus.
This year’s theme is The Children’s Hour, celebrating books for young yearners and the people who love them. The theme borrows the title of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s beloved 1860 work about his three daughters.
“Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour,” read the opening lines, and they speak to the age-old practice of parents, grandparents and caregivers spending time with their charges, often reading to them or with them. It also speaks to the wide variety of children’s literature available at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.
Book lovers also will find a plethora of antique and collectible books on every imaginable subject, plus historic maps, antique prints, vintage photography, ephemera, autographs, and other paper collectibles.
Booksellers offer a wide selection, including modern signed first editions, fine bindings, pricey rare books from the earliest days of publishing as well as inexpensive reading copies. Readers can find books to fit any budget. Topics include Americana, classical literature, art books, religion, cooking, poetry, children’s literature (of course), illustrated books, military history, regional histories, world history, and more. Some dealers feature Florida history and literature.
A complete listing of the exhibitors and their specialties is available at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair website, floridaantiquarianbookfair.com
Opening Night
Opening night at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair on Friday, April 1, is traditionally a festive occasion with live music and fairgoers eager to get a first look at great volumes and hidden treasures, and booksellers eager to greet old friends and new visitors.
Free Book Evaluations
The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair will offer free book evaluations by the Florida Bibliophile Society on Sunday, April 3. Patrons may bring two or three volumes for evaluation. A ticket to the book fair is required.
Tickets
The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair runs Friday, April 1, from 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.; Saturday, April 2, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, April 3, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $10 Friday, and is good for the entire weekend; Saturday's tickets are $6 per day or $10 for the weekend. Sunday's tickets are $6 for the day. Admission is free for children twelve and under. Parking is free for the show's duration. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com or at the box office.
Ticket sales benefit the St. Petersburg Public Library. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is presented by the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association and sponsored by Biblio.com, the online marketplace specializing in rare and collectible books. Media sponsors are WUSF Public Media and WEDU, West Central Florida’s PBS station.
The Coliseum
The book fair is presented in The Coliseum, a restored 1920s music and dance hall that has been billed as the South’s finest ballroom. Featuring a 34-foot arched ceiling over a polished oak floor, it has hosted such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Rudy Vallee, Harry James, and Paul Whiteman, not to mention Cab Calloway, Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, and Louis Armstrong. It is located at 535 Fourth Avenue North, in downtown St. Petersburg.
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Georgia bookseller Lee Linn trades in hard-to-find 1960s and 1970s Black Urban Fiction, and decorative bindings
Lee Linn of The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia, is a longtime exhibitor at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. She made this FIRST LOOK video to highlight some of the items she plans to bring to the book fair in April
A selection of titles from Holloway House, a Los Angeles publisher best known for 1960s and 70s Black urban fiction. Ephemera from Norman Studios in Jacksonville, which produced movies in the 1930s with entirely Black casts. Collection includes promotional material sent to theaters.
One of her favorites, Lee will include books with decorative bindings from early 20th century, featuring such artists as Margaret Armstrong and Harrison Fisher. Also in her collection will be Florida stereo views, including scenes from Jacksonville and Tampa areas, citrus groves, alligators, and foliage. She'll also have cookbooks, ranging from Cross Creek Cookery to Mary Randolph’ s Virginia Housewife to recipes from water skiers in Winter Haven!
And finally, she'll have a first edition of the Lomax’s Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly, with DJ (poor one!) ownership signature of musicologist Rudi Blesh. She also will have a little children’s reading corner with some free books.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
First Look: Here's an opportunity for book lovers to learn what's coming to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in April
After a two-year pandemic induced hiatus, the Florida Antiquarian Book
Fair will be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 1-3, 2022 at The
Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. With this feature, FIRST LOOK,
we're sharing some of the most interesting items that will be featured
at the book fair.
Barbara Loe, owner of Cardtique, LLC, in Osprey, Florida, is a longtime
collector and dealer in Victorian era ephemera, and a member of the
Ephemera Society of America.
Barbara shares items in several categories, including Valentines, trade
cards, and admission tickets from the era of chromolithography, a
painstaking printing process which produced elaborate and beautiful
printed items.
Please check our Facebook page, our Instagram page, our YouTube channel
and our blog for more FIRST LOOK items for the upcoming book fair.
Friday, March 4, 2022
A Brief Introduction to Book Collecting From BIBLIO
BY STEPHEN BAKES
You know that feeling you sometimes get where you come to the last page of a really great book and you can’t quite believe that it’s over? You want it to keep going. You want something more. That’s the first symptom of a burgeoning addiction to book collecting.
There isn’t one type of book collector. If you’ve ever kept a copy of a book that you had already finished reading, you’ve already started in collecting books. If you’ve ever bought a hardcover copy to replace the paperback, you are getting deep into addiction.
How to get started
Buy what you like.
Although your book collection may go up in value over time, it’s never guaranteed. If you focus your collection on books that you know that you love, you will always be surrounded with a collection that reflects your love.
Find a theme.
The focus of your collection may be a specific author, subject, binding style, series. You may want to collect rare works by classic authors, or you may collect paperback editions of golden era science fiction with their arresting cover illustrations. Collections are as diverse as their owners.
Start slowly.
One of the easiest ways to get started is to find a specific book that you love and buy a really nice copy of that book. It doesn’t need to be cost prohibitive to start. If, for example, one of your favorite books is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, you may be ready to spend a few hundred or a few thousand on a really lovely first edition, first issue with all the right points (what are points of issue?), but you can also buy a facsimile of the first edition, published by the First Edition Library, for only a few dollars.
You can read the complete article here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)