RARE BOOK CAFE: Watch LIVE today at 2:30 p.m. ET

Welcome to the 10th episode of Rare Book Cafe 2.0. Our guest is Michael Slicker, chairman of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, rare book appraiser, and owner of Lighthouse Books ABAA.

In a pre-recorded segment, Michael discusses antiquarian books, the book fair (now in its 36 year), his 40 years with Lighthouse Books, and a bit of Florida history. Interviewer is guest host Cynthia Gibson, editorial director of bookfairsdotcom.

Miami Beach bookseller Steven Eisenstein is the host of Rare Book Cafe. Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books in West Palm Beach, are co-hosts. Regular co-host Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, is away. Joining us is special guest co-host Cynthia Gibson, in Charleston, South Carolina, owner of bookfairs.com. The program features Edie Eisenstein, an authority on miniature books.

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

Come explore Tampa Bay with us as we search for Hidden Gems you can visit when you come to the Florida book fair

So, on Halloween (which may or may not be significant), we began what will be a series of broadcasts on Facebook LIVE designed to give visitors to the Tampa Bay area a little insight into the myriad places to go and things to do when you come to the 2017 Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. 

The reasoning is this: Sure, you want to immerse yourself for three days in the remarkable book city that materializes in The Coliseum every year. However, if you come from a considerable distance, you might want to plan to stay awhile and see and do everything you can while you're here. Heck, we would (if we didn't already live here.)

So, we've taken it upon ourselves to visit some of the places we think you might want to know about and to tell you about them through this amazing medium called Facebook LIVE. If you haven't experienced it yet, there's an example at the top of the page. You'll also find it on YouTube. Of course, the best place to experience Facebook LIVE is on Facebook. All you have to do is search on Facebook for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair and LIKE us there. Then you'll get notices when we do go live so you can experience the outing with us. If not, you're welcome to join us here on the blog or over on our YouTube Channel.

A word about the places we'll choose. You can let us know your thoughts about places you'd like us to visit. Just send us an email or comment at the bottom of this entry. We'd be happy to try to go to the places you're interested in but you have to let us know. We're not clairvoyant. Left to our own devices we'll probably go to places we think are interesting to visit. We like food and there are many choices in the Tampa Bay area, so you might see some restaurants. We like beer so you might see a brewery or two. We like museums and we have several from which to choose. We're up for adventures of all kinds so there's really no  telling where we might end up.

So, we hope you'll join us, whether it's here on the blog or over on Facebook LIVE, which (obviously) we think is the better choice because we want you to come along with us while it's all happening and make comments and be a part of the action. But it's up to you. We're happy to see you right here on the blog, too.