🔴 Rare Book Cafe COFFEE BREAK No 85: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, safe travels, Ed Markiewicz

Ed Markiewicz, Lee Linn and Richard Mori join together for this holiday and year end show, celebrating Christmas with memories of classic books and ephemera they’ve handled over the years. 

Lee also discusses her Dickens' London Christmas display that she puts up every year in her home/book store. Lee made a video tour of the display that you can watch on Rare Book Cafe YouTube channel.

Plus, Ed Markiewicz, co-host for these last four-and-a-half years, announces his transition into a new role as a roving reporter filing reports from exotic locations in the bibliosphere. Bon voyage, Ed. We’ll look forward to hearing about your travels. 

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. 

Lee Linn, Ed Markiewicz and Richard Mori are veteran antiquarian booksellers. Lee owns The Ridge Books in Calhoun, Georgia. Ed owns Montgomery Rare Books & Manuscripts in Amherst, Massachusetts. Richard owns Mori Books in Franklin, New Hampshire. 

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 

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

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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

 

TEACH A CHILD TO READ AND GIVE THEM SOMETHING WORTH READING

We like the way Theodor Seuss Geisel put it: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” By now, we suppose, Dr. Seuss’s sentiment is almost a cliche. Still, there’s a fundamental truth here.

Other brilliant minds put it in their own ways. Roald Dahl said: “I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”

Anyone who has read Matilda or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach surely will agree.

Katherine Patterson puts it quite another way.

She says, “It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations – something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”

She surely did that in Bridge to Terabithia, her 1977 children’s novel about two children who create their own magical forest kingdom in their imaginations.

Anyone in search of children’s books won’t be disappointed at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair 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. 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.

HERE'S AN AMAZING BACKSTORY FOR READERS:F. SCOTT AND HOLLYWOOD WRITER SHEILAH GRAHAM

 

The backstory for this quotation offers an entrée into a world that ought to prove a delight to any book lover.

 

It never appeared in any of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. Instead, it’s part of Beloved Infidel: The Education of a Woman (1957), a memoir by famed Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. In the book, she recounts her three-and-a-half year romance with the novelist when he lived in Hollywood and was trying to write for MGM.

 

Their attraction was immediate. At some point in the relationship, Sheilah revealed her impoverished and undereducated past, including time in an East End of London orphanage. Scott undertook to broaden her education.

 

Sheilah also writes about that episode of her life in College of One (1967). These are but two of eight autobiographical works in which she tells the story of her journey to becoming a top syndicated Hollywood writer, more widely distributed than her two closest rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. Sheilah dominated Hollywood reporting for decades.

 

But there’s more. Sheilah’s daughter, grew up to be Wendy W. Fairey, who earned a doctorate at Columbia University and taught English literature and creative writing for years at Brooklyn College. She wrote One of the Family (1992) about growing in Hollywood and her discovery that she was the child of her mother and British philosopher A.J. Ayer. She also wrote Full House (2002), a collection of related stories.

And that doesn’t even touch on the relationship of Scott and his wife Zelda, who was institutionalized while Scott was in Hollywood. 

 

A lot to work with there. 

 

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

 

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.

OMAR KHAYYAM AND HIS AMAZING RUBAIYAT, AND THE TRANSLATION FROM PERSIAN TO ENGLISH

Omar Khayyam was another one of those fellows who was just brilliant in so many different subjects. The other day we were discussing the 17th century French philosopher Rene Decartes. Brilliant in math, science, and philosophy.

So now we consider Omar Khayyam, the 13th century Persian thinker and writer. He, too, was brilliant in so many different subjects. He contributed the knowledge base of certain parts of algebra and geometry and the development of the solar calendar based on his observations as an astronomer.

And still, somehow, he found time to express himself beautifully as a poet. Some scholars think that Omar wrote poetry as an amusement and a respite from his work as an astronomer and mathematician. His poetry shows up in various accounts in Persian history.

Of course, credit for the book The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam rightly goes to 19th century English poet Edward FitzGerald, who translated Omar’s work into English. FitzGerald published numerous editions of the Rubaiyat, and made significant changes in some of them. Furthermore, much of the poetry is simply a very loose translation of what Omar originally wrote.

Case in point, the quotation in the image is from the fifth edition, which was publish posthumously. It is probably the most familiar. However, the verse in the first edition is somewhat different, though offering the same sentiment.

You could get quite caught up in learning the history of this iconic volume. Suffice it to suggest that there probably will be copies of the Rubaiyat at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

There will be booksellers of a wide variety of subjects. So, if your interest lies in poetry, history, or most any other subject, you probably won’t want to miss 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.

WHAT BUGS YOU ABOUT KAFKA? NOTHING, WE HOPE

To say that Franz Kafka’s writing is bizarre is to miss the point. It was bizarre, yes, but with an astounding precision and detail as to raise it to high literary achievement. Critics consider him to be a major figure in 20th century literature.

His novella, The Metamorphosis, was first published in 1915, first as a story in a literary magazine and then as a book. It deals with a traveling salesman who wakes up to find himself transformed into an insect, and his efforts to consider the consequences of his situation and to cope with it. 

 

The absurd and surrealistic difficulties facing Kafka's protagonists have been interpreted as commentary on bureaucratic and socio-economic oppression facing people in the modern world. 

 

Franz Kafka died in 1924 at age 40. He never knew the fame his work would eventually achieve. Had it not been for his lifelong friend, Max Brod, who became a journalist, author, and composer, much of Kafka’s work might never have been published. Kafka told his friend he wanted his work destroyed. Brod ignored him and had his work published after his death.

 

Kafka wrote in German, and his work wasn’t published in English until 1930. Scottish novelists and translators Edwin and Willa Muir were responsible for early translations of Kafka’s major works, including The Metamorphosis, The Castle, and The Trial. Over the decades, Kafka’s work has been retranslated and republished many times.

 

And he continues to intrigue readers and scholars in the 21st century. To say that there’s more to Franz Kafka than meets the eye may be an understatement. We’re intrigued by his quotation about books. Suffice to say there undoubtedly will be some Kafka and so much more available at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

 

We hope we’ll see you at the book fair on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

 

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

 

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.

PULP FICTION, FANTASY, AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that would instigate a chain of murders.”

So begins a pulp novel by Fredric Brown, a prolific science fiction and mystery writer who sold his first stories to American pulp magazines in 1936. His first mystery novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947) was the beginning of a series of seven detective novels, featuring teenager Ed Hunter and his uncle Ambrose, who is a carnival sideshow operator.

Oh, and by the way, the quotation at the beginning is the first line of a 1954 novel His Name Was Death. The title comes from the biblical book of Revelations.

Fredric Brown wrote hundreds of novels and magazine stories, including mysteries, science fiction and fantasy.

Many other popular writers began in pulp novels and magazines. After all, it’s a genre that began in the late 1890s. Some writers who come to mind are Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes), Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, The Long Goodbye) and James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice).

If this intrigues you at all, we think the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair might just be an event you won’t want to miss. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

There will be antiquarian booksellers galore, including some who are undoubtedly knowledgeable about pulp fiction.

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

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.