Rare Book Cafe LIVE on Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

🔴 RARE BOOK CAFE 5.0 (S5 E25) How are you adding to your collection in this time of isolation? Are you spending more time reading? Are you ordering your books online? Our guests are Texas bookseller Bryan Young and Meredith Myers, the Stand-up Librarian. Rare Book Cafe, a world leader in social distancing since 2015. This program is on Facebook. To participate in the conversation, please use this link. The LIVE program begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Rare Book Cafe LIVE. Join the conversation on Facebook

🔴 RARE BOOK CAFE 5.0 (S5 E24) Book restoration expert Sophia Bogle shares the questions to ask before you get your book repaired. Plus, tiny books expertise, a visit from Felix O’Neill and more. Rare Book Cafe, a world leader in social distancing since 2015. This program is on Facebook. To participate in the conversation, please use this link. The LIVE program begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

What's coming up for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair? You can get a glimpse in this ongoing live streamed TV program

Here's a glimpse of some of what to expect at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in April. This is Rare Book Cafe, the world's only regularly scheduled live streamed TV program devoted to rare and collectible books. You can watch it in real time each Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the Rare Book Cafe page on Facebook. For the next few weeks, you'll meet booksellers who will be exhibiting at the book fair. Tickets for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair can be ordered online. In the right column on this blog page you'll find a BUY TICKETS NOW link where you can have them delivered to your email instantly.

Popular exhibitor Larry Rakow specializes in hard-to-find and rare children's books from Victorian era to the present

One of the most anticipated booksellers at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair every year is Larry Rakow, owner of Wonderland Books in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Larry specializes in old, out-of-print, and rare children's books, and is always a favorite among fair goers.

Larry, a former children's and young adult librarian, opened Wonderland Books in 1990. He is a member of the Magic Lantern Society of the U.S. and Canada, the Movable Book Society, and a past president of the Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society.

His Wonderland Books features more than 12,000 titles, includign his favorite pop-up and novelty books, Caldecott and Newbery award-winning titles, Golden Books, and illustrated volumes from modern times all the way back to the Victorian era.

"We pride ourselves on offering collectible books in extraordinary condition," says Larry. He delights in helping collectors complete their collections of Caldecott winners, Little Golden Books, rare Meggendorfer, Nister, and Raphael Tuck titles, as well as books from their childhoods.

You can send Larry an email and inquire about books he'll bring to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. You can order tickets to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair at Eventbrite.com.

Rare Book Cafe 3.0: Author Lee Irby, and the California autograph law and how the ABAA is trying to change it

Welcome to the fourth in the series of Rare Book Cafe 3.0, which was streamed live on Facebook on Saturday, May 27, 2017. We had writer Lee Irby, author of the new mystery novel, Unreliable, returning as a guest. We also welcomed Brad Johnson, a California bookseller, who spoke about the ABAA effort to negotiate a new law to replace the state's controversial signed memorabilia law that has ensnared antiquarian book dealers.

Guest co-host Kara Accettola of Little Sages Books, ABAA in the Fort Lauderdale area, joined us as well. Co-host Thorne Donnelley was back from Boston after the graduation of his daughter from Harvard Business College. Co-host Lin Thompson interviewed Brad Johnson.

We also tried out our tweaked format for the show, with a little less formal opening and closing. We want to create the effect of an ongoing conversation that might take place if the Rare Book Cafe were an actual bricks and mortar cafe where book lovers gather. Through the miracle of modern technology, we're able to have such a gathering over the Internet. We want you to be part of it. As soon as it is technically feasible, we may add sound effects that will enhance the cafe idea. In the meantime, what you see is what you get.

We're working constantly to improve what we send out to you streaming live. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but we hope we're getting better and better. We're booksellers not broadcasters so we'll never be 60 Minutes but we hope we'll provide some useful information for people who love books a much as we do.

We do love comments and questions, so please leave us your in the Comments section below, including your thoughts about how we go about presenting our show. We also love thumbs up, so leave us yours. And finally, subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. We'll see you LIVE every Saturday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Rare Book Cafe originated on Blab.im in 2015 but the platform shut down in August 2016. The program was on hiatus for several weeks and in the fall broadcast the first episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0 on YouTube (streaming live on Google Hangouts on the Air).

Now the program has moved to the BeLive.tv platform. The program is live streamed on the Rare Book Cafe page on Facebook and is recorded and posted on YouTube and the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair blog on Blogspot.com

Rare Book Cafe is the first regularly scheduled live streaming Internet program devoted to antiquarian books and related subjects.

March 25 on Rare Book Cafe: Wonderland Books will reunite you with all your childhood reading favorites, and no teeth marks.

Spring is the season for kids, as e.e. cummings reminds us:

in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

        the

                 goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

So with spring springing- early as usual in the Southern US, yet to come in the North (but soon, really!), Rare Book Cafe is delighted to welcome rare and collectible children’s book dealer Larry Rakow to our March 25 program!

The program will also feature segments on miniature books, appraising books, book collecting as mental illness, and accidental literary bonfires, but the idea of a kid’s book surviving the kid is so novel you won’t want to miss Rakow’s account of how he has built a business around finding and selling them.

With a brilliant website and blog, an online catalogue, YouTube videos, and a Facebook page, Wonderland Books is an easy find for the online shopper. Here's how Wonderland describes itself:

Wonderland Books began doing business in 1990, dealing in old, rare, and out-of-print children's books. Owner Larry Rakow is a former children's and young adult librarian and the prior owner of Kidstamps and Wonder-Shirts, businesses that create educational items and apparel designed by some of the world's leading children's illustrators to encourage and motivate reading. (Interested? You can check out Wonder-Shirts current website at www.wonder-shirts.com.) A proud member of the Movable Book Society (www.movablebooksociety.org) and the Magic Lantern Society of the U.S. and Canada (www.magiclanternsociety.org) and a past-president of the Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society (www.nobsweb.org), Larry lives with his wife, Susan, two children and four grandchildren in Cleveland Heights, OH.

Wonderland Books maintains an inventory of more than 12,000 titles and specializes in pop-up and novelty books, Newbery and Caldecott-award winners, Golden Books, and illustrated titles from Victorian through modern times. We attend a limited number of book fairs each year (check out our blog to see upcoming dates), but tend to do most of our sales over the internet. We pride ourselves on offering collectible books in extraordinary condition and, in the past, have helped customers complete collections of Caldecott-winners and Little Golden Books, rare Meggendorfer, Nister, and Raphael Tuck titles, and many much-beloved books from their childhoods. Looking for a particular title? I'm sure we can help.

Visiting the Cleveland area? Here’s how to find Wonderland:

By email via the Wonderland100 website and Facebook.

By phone: 1 216-538-7460

Or at the following address:
1824 Wilton Rd.
Cleveland Heights, OH, U.S.A.
44118

____________

Rare Books Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s broadcast every Saturday from 2.30 to 3.30 pm EST and features 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 and the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair’s Facebook page; right here on the Book Fair Blog, and the Book Fair's YouTube channel. Shows are archived on YouTube and can also be viewed on the Facebook pages and the blog after their first run.

Hosted by Miami book dealer, appraiser and WDBFRadio.com’s Bucks on the Bookshelf radio show creator Steven Eisenstein, the program features a revolving set of cohosts and regular guests including 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.

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 virtually live studio audience for the program, write us at rarebookcafe@gmail.com.

Rare Book Cafe: Watch LIVE today at 2:30 p.m. ET

Welcome to the 11th episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0. Our guest is Lee Irby, author of the new thriller, Unreliable, two Roaring Twenties-era Florida adventures, and a book about a VW bus.  He also is an avid fan of Edgar Allan Poe, and a visiting professor of history at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg

This week's show also features a special segment on the creator of the Tom Swift adventure series and more.

Miami Beach bookseller Steven Eisenstein, host of Rare Book Cafe is away, as is his wife Edie, host of the miniature book segment of our show. Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books in West Palm Beach, serves as host this week, along with regular co-host Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina.

T. Allan Smith is creator and executive producer.

Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, celebrating its 36th year on April 21-23, 2016 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. Florida Antiquarian Book Fair features more than 100 booksellers offering rare, used, and collectible book, vintage prints, antique maps, vintage photographs, autographs, and collectible printed matter of all kinds.

Rare Book Cafe originated on Blab.im in 2015 but the platform shut down in August 2016. The rebooted program now on YouTube (broadcasting live on Google Hangouts on the Air) every Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET. Please join us.

Email: rarebookcafe@gmail.com

Rare Book Cafe 2.0 is on the air today at 2:30 p.m. ET Today's guest: Kara Accettola, Little Sages Books, ABAA

Welcome to the third episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0, the rebooted program now on YouTube (broadcasting live on Google Hangouts on the Air). Rare Book Cafe originated on Blab.im in 2015 but the platform shut down in August 2016.

Guest: Kara Accettola, owner of Little Sages Books, ABAA in Fort Lauderdale. Kara has a primary focus on women, non-elitist narratives, art, social history and culture. A new 'microcatalog' project began this year, with selected thematic gatherings in digital and printed form.

Miami Beach bookseller Steven Eisenstein is the host of Rare Book Cafe. Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books in West Palm Beach, and Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, are co-hosts. Rare Book Cafe features Edie Eisenstein's Very Small Bookshelf.

T. Allan Smith is creator and executive producer.

Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, celebrating its 36th year on April 21-23, 2016 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. Florida Antiquarian Book Fair features more than 100 booksellers offering rare, used, and collectible book, vintage prints, antique maps, vintage photographs, autographs, and collectible printed matter of all kinds.

If you have questions about the show, questions about rare or collectible books that you would like to have answered on the show or if you would like to join us in the virtual studio audience, send us an email at rarebookcafe@gmail.com.

Rare Book Cafe 2.0 is on the air today at 2:30 p.m. ET Today's guest: Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning

Welcome to the second episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0, the rebooted program now on YouTube (broadcasting live on Google Hangouts on the Air). Rare Book Cafe originated on Blab.im in 2015 but the platform shut down in August 2016.

Guest: Rick Wilber, author of Alien Morning. Rick teaches mass communications at the University of South Florida. He is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher. He has published more than 40 short stories, several novels and short-story collections, two edited anthologies, a memoir, and a half-dozen college textbooks on writing and the mass media.

Miami Beach bookseller Steven Eisenstein is the host of Rare Book Cafe. Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books in West Palm Beach, and Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, are co-hosts. Rare Book Cafe features Edie Eisenstein's Very Small Bookshelf.

T. Allan Smith is creator and executive producer.

Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, celebrating its 36th year on April 21-23, 2016 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. Florida Antiquarian Book Fair features more than 100 booksellers offering rare, used, and collectible book, vintage prints, antique maps, vintage photographs, autographs, and collectible printed matter of all kinds.

If you have questions about the show, questions about rare or collectible books that you would like to have answered on the show or if you would like to join us in the virtual studio audience, send us an email at rarebookcafe@gmail.com.