Our many friends are the stars of our 30-second TV spot! Thank you so much for volunteering to be in our video

During the 2014 Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, we asked several of our more vivacious booksellers to participate in a video we planned to show leading up to the 2015 show. The result was a lively 30-second spot that succinctly let viewers know what they could expect at the book fair. It was shown on Bright House Networks and on WUSF Channel 16. The format was something of a departure from previous TV spots for the book fair, and we were pleased that it seemed to be well received.

So, last year, building on that success, we decided to keep the same format but change the cast. We asked our patrons, our friends, our fair goers if they'd like to participate. The response was phenomenal. People loved the idea and many were most willing to volunteer to take part. The video at the top of this page is the result. It is our official 30-second TV spot, and, as with others in previous years, it will be shown on Bright House Networks and WUSF Channel 16.

However, the successful response led to a dilemma. We had more willing performers than we had time in our spot. Soooo, as soon as we can, we're going edit another 30-second spot and include some of the people who were omitted from this one. We hope you'll be as delighted as we were with the many talented friends of the book fair who joined us. Watch for it coming up soon.

Meanwhile, we need help with a new dilemma. What do we do for an encore? We're taking suggestions about what we should do for the 2017 book fair spot. We're pretty sure we'd like to include people who attend this year's fair. We're just not too sure about what we want to do. We're open to suggestions. If you have a brilliant idea, shoot us an email at floridabookfair2@gmail.com. We guarantee we'll read them all and give them consideration.

Here are the guidelines: It has to be something that can be done quickly and easily during the book fair this year. The resulting video has to be easily edited into 30 seconds. And, of course, it has to reflect what the book fair is all about. We're looking forward to your ideas.

Book dealers go high tech to tout their passion

Modern technology is changing the landscape for many endeavors, including the antiquarian book business. Some decry the advent of iPads and iPhones and Nooks and Kindles, with gloomy predications of the demise of the traditional book. More optimistic souls note that the more books are digitized and put on electronic devices, the more valuable traditional paper books become, scarcity and demand being the operative factors.

And though some antiquarian book dealers certainly eschew anything that smacks of modernity (including email), a new breed of booksellers is wholeheartedly embracing modern technology that helps them spread the word about their passion – antiquarian books. Podcasts have been around for years, of course, but this marks the first time we know of that they've been used to talk about the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

This year, before and during the book fair, dealer Steven Eisenstein of A-Book-A-Brac Shop in Miami Beach, recorded an Internet radio show. We'll have more about that soon but we also wanted to tell you about another podcast recently published.

Mike Cotter and Keith Wallace of Yeoman's in the Fork in Franklin, Tennessee, teamed up with their colleague, Greg Snider (who is responsible for the Internet presence at Yeoman's), to produce an interesting podcast of their recollections of this year's Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. We thought you'd enjoy listening to their program.

These are a few of our favorite things

We we saw all the people at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair on Friday night lugging away boxes and package it brought to mind Oscar Hamme4rstein's lyrics from The Sound of Music: "... brown paper packages tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things." Never mind that the book lovers we saw had boxes and plastic bags. We know that these are a few of their favorite things, too.

And why not? Book lovers know what they love and they know they'll find something to love at the book fair. Judging by the sizes of the packages many were carrying, they were finding many things to love.

The book fair continues on today and Sunday, of course, and we're certain that book lovers will ferret out the most wonderful tomes. See you at the book fair.

Book fair opens tonight at 5 p.m. See you there!

Well, the weekend we've been waiting for all year is finally here. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair opens tonight at 5 p.m. There is always a crowd waiting to get in so if you want to be near the front of the line it's best to get there early. You can get an advance look at who will be at the book fair by downloading a program. Just click on the link. Download a program. There's so much to see at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair that it's never a bad idea to plan to come all three days. Tonight you can get a lay of the land, browse through the entire fair so you have an idea what's where. If you've been to the fair before, you know you're going to see old friend. Most of the booksellers come back year after year so you get to know them and they get to know you.

Come back on Saturday for some serious digging. Often dealers bring more great items than they have room to display. You'll only find out about them if you talk to them. That's also a good way to learn more about your particular interest. These folks are knowledgeable and they're perfectly willing to share their knowledge but they won't know what you're looking for if you don't tell them. There's so much to explore and so little time so make the best use of it by spending Saturday delving into what interests you. A word of caution, though. If you see something you've got to have, buy it right then. Don't wait. If you do, it might be gone.

On Sunday, you can relax and enjoy the day. Revisit some dealers and some items you've been mulling over. Providing they are still there, of course, you can decide to go ahead and purchase them. In any case, get around to dealers you might have missed. Make new friends. Exchange email addresses so you can stay in touch.

It's over all too quickly so savor it why you can. See you at the book fair.

Tampa Bay Times article features SunLit Festival

There's an article coming out in the Tampa Bay Times entertainment section this week about the new SunLit Festival, the celebration of literature, reading, and writing that begins on Saturday. It's already online here. 

The article by Times Book Editor Colette Bancroft tells a little bit about the origins of the SunLit Festival and features a photograph of two of the actors who are participating in the SunLit Crawl, a pub crawl with literature, on Wednesday, March 11. We're pleased, of course, because we're sponsoring the SunLit Crawl and we think it's going to be great fun for everyone involved.

The two actors, Nyela Hope (Zora Neale Hurston) and Deanna Scott (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings), are part of the Famous Dead Authors troupe from Venue Theater and Actors Studio, which has been so helpful in putting together the SunLit Crawl. Other members of the cast are Robert Gilligan (Jack Kerouac) and John M. Lowe (Ernest Hemingway). They are ably directed by Corinne Broskette, who heads Venue.

The other group figuring significantly in producing SunLit Crawl is Keep St. Pete Lit, whose president, poet Maureen McDole, believes in the power of literature to change the world. Keep St. Pete Lit works hard to promote and celebrate greater St. Petersburg's literary community. Maureen will serve as host for our first-ever Book Fair Live video program during the book fair. More on that later.

SunLit Crawl will be presented, as we've said, on the Wednesday before the book fair opens in some great downtown venues, some of our favorites, actually. The festivities begin with the Foreword Before Party at Wine Madonna at 6 p.m. Wine Madonna, 111 Second Avenue NE,  is operated by bestselling author Kristine Radish, who received the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance Muse Literary Award this year. Kris promises some literary-themed wines and other surprises.

The party then moves on to the Chapters venues. Genaro Coffee Company, 1047 Central Avenue;  Bodega on Central, 1120 Central Avenue; and Green Bench Brewery, 1133 Baum Avenue N, all in the Edge District. That's where you'll find the actors and readers in their element. Genaro owners Patricia Francati and Preston Johnson offer a marvelous coffee shop setting for jazz concerts and poetry readings. Debbie and George Sayegh, owners of Bodega on Central, wholeheartedly support community activities and are graciously setting aside their covered outdoor patio space for this event. St. Petersburg natives Steven Duffy and Nathan Stonecipher are making the garden area of their popular Green Bench Brewery available for SunLit Crawl. The event is free but we hope everyone attending will purchase food and libations from these great local businesses.

The story isn't over until the Epilogue, and the party isn't over until the Epilogue After Party. That gets underway at Mitch and Crystal Faber's Old Key West Bar & Grill (formerly Butler's Old Key West), 2451 Central Avenue, at 9 p.m. or as soon as you get there after the readings.

That's where well-known folk impresario Pete Gallagher has put together an impressive program to wind up the SunLit Crawl festivities, including The Florida Boys, the Kelly Green Jazz Band, and the Fabulous St. Petersburg Sea Shanties. Says Peter: "A little known fact is that Kerouac loved sea shanties and referred to them in several books. He always heard sea shanties in the air when he was walking in San Francisco."

Pete Gallagher continues: "Kelly has a song called 'Book of Dreams,' inspired by Kerouac's book of the same title. She and several jazz players will improvise behind the Brad Morewood St. Pete Beat Poets, who will be reading both Kerouac and original works."

It all promises to be a night to remember, and we're happy to be a part of it. We hope to see you there and at the opening night of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair on Friday.

St. Petersburg. What a great place to be if you're a book lover.

Modern Literature: One man's must-reads

Author Sterling Watson, co-director of Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, took time for wide-ranging interview on our theme for the 2015 Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, Modern Literature: The Truth and Beauty of Fiction. This is an excerpt from that interview. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair runs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March 13, 14, and 15 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

Have you seen the latest news on papyrus?

Pompeii fresco of Greek lyric poet Sappho.

We've been reading with utter fascination the recent developments with ancient papyrus writings that have been in the news recently. A few days ago, there were reports from all over about the biblical scholars who may have found a fragment of the oldest known Gospel of Mark inside an Egyptian mummy mask. If it turns out to be authentic, that surely is an astounding find.

Now comes news from Smithsonian Magazine that new x-ray technology is allowing Italian scientists to study for the first time ancient scrolls from Pompeii blackened in the volcanic eruption in 79 AD and made so fragile that they could be destroyed just touching them.

With the new x-ray machine, scientists won't have to touch the scrolls to study them. They'll just scan them like CT scanner, only a little different. It's all quite technical but the gist is that ancient inks sit on top of the papyrus fibers just enough that they can be seen in the x-ray images.

Anybody who is attracted to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, of course, is going to sit up and take notice when developments like this pop up so we figure we're probably not alone in seeking all the details. From what we've seen, the technological breakthrough has just begun to yield something the scientists can work with so it may be some time before there are any great revelations. Apparently there are some 1,800 blackened scrolls that have been discovered.

As it happens, next year's theme for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is Written Relics: Papyrus to paperbacks. It's a great theme that gets to the heart of the many varied reasons collectors collect books. It'll be fun to explore in 2016. Maybe by then there will be some new developments on these two stories.

In the meantime, we're focused on this year's book fair. The theme this year is Modern Literature: the truth and beauty of fiction. We'll be talking about that in much greater detail in these days leading up to the book fair, so stay tuned and share with your friends.

For book lovers, something a little different

Here's something a little different for book lovers. We came across a Washington Post article about this lady. Her name is Maria and she has gained something of a celebrity status for her practice of making videos in which she speaks very, very softly.

For some people, her whispers induce a pleasurable tingle all over their bodies. It's known as autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). It's like what might have happened as a kid and your friend whispered in your ear and you felt a shiver and pulled away giggling. In the Post article, Maria described it as a "shower of sparkles" and "like warm sand being poured all over you ..."

Hey, we like the beach so it was enough to send us poking around her YouTube channel, GentleWhispering, and wouldn't you know it, we discovered Maria's offering for book lovers that you see embedded above.

She had another interesting one set in a library in which she seemed to be portraying the world's quietest librarian. She typed information to issue us a library card but we left before it was ready. You'll have to find that one for yourself. This ASMR effect may not be for everyone but some will enjoy it.

We'd rather sit in our own library and listen to the sound of pages turning in a book we bought at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

Past is prologue: a little history of the book fair

This is the 34th year for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. Sometimes fair goers wonder about the history of the book fair. How did it start? Was it always at The Coliseum? Is anybody still around who remembers the old days? We're always happy when we get questions like that because we've got answers.

Yes, there are people still around after all these years who were involved with the first Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. No, it wasn't always at The Coliseum, though few would dispute the suggestion that this is probably the perfect venue for this book fair. The story of how the book fair started and some of its history over the years is told in the FABA Museum, an online space on our website devoted to our history. We encourage you to click the link and go visit the museum. It's free.

One of the videos that you'll find in the FABA Museum is displayed at the top of this post. In it, book fair chairman Michael Slicker talks about the earliest days of the book fair and where the idea for it came from in the first place. We hope you'll enjoy the video and that you'll take the time to visit the FABA Museum and learn a little about the background of this amazing event.

As always, we'd love to hear from you -- your thoughts, your ideas, your responses to what we've posted.

For your convenience, book fair tickets online

We've mentioned this before but it certainly bears repeating. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can now buy your tickets to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair online.

For the practical minded among us, this is quite a convenience. It means, in real terms, that you don't have to stand in line at the box office to buy your tickets. One less obstacle to getting to what you're really coming for -- the books.

The folks at Eventbrite make it really quite easy to buy your tickets. Their website is easy to navigate and everything is quite clear. What's more, they have it set up so that you get immediate notification via email, and you get your tickets. You can print them out and bring them with you or leave them on your phone and we'll scan it when you arrive. Ain't technology wonderful?

We started this a couple of years ago and it's really amazing how many more people are buying their tickets online than did that first year. Eventbrite is probably a huge company by now. They're based in San Francisco, where all great technology-based ideas come from (are you an Uber Taxi fan?).

Back when we were setting all this up we had an occasion to call out there for some advice. The company seemed pretty tiny then. You had the impression of a few tech-savvy folks getting together to and creating this great idea for helping small venues deal with ticket sales. Don't think they even had a receptionist or a phone operator. The woman who answered the phone had all the answers as if she had been working on the software herself. (She might have been.) Think she might have said that she was the only one in the office. Everyone else had gone to lunch.

Anyway, we've been pleased that so many of you have decided that buying tickets online is the way to go. You may know that we've set up a discount code "saveabuck" so that if you enter it you'll save most of the service fee, plus you get the tickets immediately. Don't use the quotation marks. Just enter the code as one word. There's a link in the column on the right on this blog. Click where it says BUY TICKETS NOW. You'll be taken to our page on Eventbrite.

If it works for you, we hope you'll go online and get your tickets. If not, we're happy to accommodate you at the box office. We hope you won't have to wait in line too long. We'll get you in the door as soon as we can.

It's getting closer. We'll see you at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

We're counting the days, hours, minutes, seconds ...

In just a few weeks, we'll be gathering at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg for the 34th annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. Antiquarian booksellers from all over the country will be here for the oldest and largest book fair in the southeastern United States.

Every year we're thrilled when time for the book fair rolls around. We're looking forward to seeing old friends. Many of the booksellers have been showing at this book fair for decades. It's just what they do. They, in turn, have made many friends in Florida who come to see them every year. Meanwhile, there are always new book dealers who are exhibiting at the book fair for the first time. We look forward to seeing them as well.

Our dealers are knowledgeable about the books, maps, prints, ephemera, and related items they bring to the book fair. So if these things interest you, you're going to find kindred spirits at the book fair. A few years ago, someone described the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair as a little book village that springs up Brigadoon-like every year. We think its a special place to be and we hope you do, too.

We can't wait for Downton Abbey's fifth season

No one anticipates the new season of the PBS hit Downton Abbey more than fans of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It's a natural fit. It's inevitable, we think, that people who are attracted to beautiful leather-bound antiquarian volumes, antique maps, vintage photographs, historical ephemera, and the myriad other items found at the book fair, are going to gravitate to a post-Edwardian costume drama with plenty of plot twists served up amid delicious period detail.

And why not? Many of the treasures found at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair would be quite at home in the Yorkshire country estate of Lord Grantham and his family. It's too bad we rarely get to see much of what's on the shelves in the library but there's far too much intrigue among the family members and the staff for anybody to take time to look at the the books. Still, we'd guess there would probably be some volumes on English history, and maybe some English literature.

Wonder what else might be there? What are your thoughts? Who would Lady Mary read? What about Cora or Lord Grantham? Do you suppose Tom Branson would have quietly added some political treatises? What do you think Lady Edith might be reading?

Awhile back, the New York Public Library compiled a list of books likely to be of interest to Downton Abbey fans. It included such favorites as E.M. Forster's A Room With a View and Howard's End as well as Ken Follett's Fall of Giants, Kate Morton's The House at Riverton, Katharine McMahon's The Crimson Rooms, Frances Osborne's Park Lane, Eva Ibbotson's A Countess Below Stairs, Daisy Goodwin's The American Heiress, and Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers. Nice list.

We know where we'll be on Sunday, January 4. Glued to the television (a rarity for us) for the premiere episode of the fifth season of Downton Abbey. Yes, we're well aware that the new season already aired in Britain and is readily available for viewing online. We prefer to wait for the PBS airing. It's better quality and if it helps PBS and our local PBS station, we're happy to do it.

Meanwhile, we've already blocked out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March 13, 14, and 15 on our calendar. We'll be at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair immersing ourselves in all the beautiful books, prints, maps, and more.

Among booksellers, the more the merrier

Bookseller Mike Cotter, left, with author Robert Olen Butler at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg.

One of our great exhibitors at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair every March raises interesting questions about whether dealers should let their fellow dealers know where they'll be exhibiting.

Mike Cotter of Yeoman's in the Fork in Franklin, Tennessee, suggests that some dealers may not want their competitors to know where they're finding their great treasures.

In his blog, Mike lists the pros and cons about using an events page to let customers (as well as other dealers) know where they'll be at any given time.  But we think Mike comes down on the right side of that question, with an inclination to put the events out there on the calendar and let everyone know where to find him.

Dealers who are showing at various book fair around the country, as Mike and his colleagues do, have access to far greater selections than dealers who simply stay at home. Clearly, they also are likely to have a broader customer base. Booksellers who come to the annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair have built up a cadre of followers who always make sure they come to the book fair to see their favorite dealers.

Booksellers make great book buyers. Dealers always buy from each other. Mike note that he loves to go to shows to buy inventory for his great customers back home. He notes, though, that some dealers may be concerned that competitors will scoop up the treasures if they find out where to get them. We like that Mike comes down on the side of those who believe that what's good for the industry is good of everyone involved.

We, too, believe that booksellers as well as book collectors should become as knowledgeable as possible, and they do so by being in contact with as many like-minded book lovers as possible. We share the belief that the more book lovers are exposed to great books and friendly, informed dealers, the better it is for everyone.

When the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair rolls around in March, we hope you'll come by for a visit. Stop by and say hi to Mike Cotter. You'll be glad you did.

How to be a hero to your book lover

It's really not too early to think about the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. Here's why! Yes, the book fair isn't until March but Christmas is just around the corner. A perfect gift for the book lover in your life might be the experience of attending the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. You can order tickets right now thanks to the miracle of modern science and our friends at Eventbrite. Here's the link. http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2015-florida-antiquarian-book-fair-tickets-9658568037 Buy the tickets. You'll get a confirmation by email that you can print out. Slap a bow on it and you're done. Plus, you're a hero to your book lover.