Meet the Rare Book Cafe team: Small is Beautiful in Edie's compact world of collecting

Rare Book Cafe’s very own Steve & Edie-

“When I met Steven,” Edie Eisenstein says,  “he took me on a date to the Coral Gables library sale.”

As romances go, theirs was a bestseller, and 26 years after the wedding, they still consider each other highly collectible.

“I went to book fairs with him, and got interested in looking for something to collect,” she remembers. I met an Englishman, Michael Garrett, in St Petersburg: his specialty was miniature books! I was fascinated! He sat me down, dumped a briefcase on the table, and the rest was history.”

How many does she own now? “Never counted, but I should do an inventory. One of many projects.”

Edie was a regular in Rare Book Cafe’s first series through 2015-16. A Philadelphia native, she has done a little of everything in an adventurous life: legal secretary at the University of Pennsylvania law school; working in a Chevy plant; and teaching business education in Florida public and parochial schools. Along the way, she collected a degree from Florida Atlantic University, and another- in computer science- from Barry University.

Playing it cagey, she won’t say if she has any leads on Arrietty's diary from The Borrowers, one of the most famous miniature books in English literature. But if she does snag it, you can be sure you’ll see it first during her weekly visits on Rare Book Cafe!

Starting its second series, Rare Book Cafe is hosted by longtime Miami book dealer and appraiser Steven Eisenstein, who rushes to join us every Saturday after finishing Bucks on the Bookshelf, his weekly program on wdbfradio.com. Regular co-hosts include Thorne Donnelly, owner of Liberty Book Store in West Palm Beach, and Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina. T. Allan Smith is the program’s creator and executive producer. You can see the program live from 2:30 to 3:30 pm EST, and on demand, on the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair’s blog, as well as Rare Book Cafe’s Facebook page. From the macro to the micro, we’ve got the book world covered!

Meet the Rare Book Cafe team: The Promoter-General

Combine a taste for Borscht Belt humor and a passion for rare books and ephemera, and you get Rare Book Cafe host Steven Eisenstein. His life ran on parallel tracks for decades, one as a hotel and resort entertainment director (“From The Poconos to Venezuela!”); the other- since he was a sprig of eighteen- in rare book sales and appraisals.

A Miami Beach resident since forever, Eisenstein is a popular figure- and a survivor- in the South Florida world of rare and collectible book dealers. He has published articles on rare books and collecting in a remarkable array of publications, including The Washington Post; American Farm Journal; The Dallas Morning Call, Art & Antiques Around Florida; Bookcase; and The Southern Book Trade Journal. He’s also a regular on Miami area news and arts television programs.

Steven’s a past board member and/or member of the Miami Book Fair International Board; the Books on the Beach Antiquarian Book Fair; the Book Fair of the Palm Beaches; the Florida Bibliophile Society and the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association.

But his most significant accomplishment, in recent years, has been overcoming a deeply-treasured antipathy to technology to launch both an internet radio and television program about books and collectibles. Bucks on the Bookshelf debuted on wdbfradio.com in March 2015; in August, Rare Book Cafe followed on the now-defunct video platform, Blab, in August.

BOBS, as friends call it, is marching toward its hundredth program early next year, and has not only gained a worldwide following but inspired one of his guests to launch a sister show in Italy, Radio Bibliofilia.

Rare Book Cafe launched in August 2015 ln Blab a platform that rocketed to fame as the video chat venue of choice for hours-long monologues by the now-indicted, AIDS drug profiteer Martin Shkreli. A year later, its developers abruptly shut it down. But now Steven is leading the way on  a new technological platform, and is readying a new selection of AB Bookman’s Weekly stories for a new audience. It’s a true labor of love, doing back to back programs for half a day every Saturday, and we on the RBC team love him for it.

Meet the Rare Book Cafe team: The Book Scholar

“My family has been in the printing business since 1860,” Rare Book Cafe co-host Thorne Donnelley says, “and I have loved and collected books all my life.  However, I have only considered myself a professional since I attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminars in 2012 and the opening of my retail store the same year.

“Since then I have attended seven courses at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School and I have tried to acquire knowledge about the trade from any available source. My preference is for hand press books from before 1860, but since my primary source of books is through the purchase of estates: I find myself with a little knowledge about many things.”

A 2012 Palm Beach publication reported,

Several months ago, longtime Palm Beacher Thorne Donnelley Jr.’s interest in collectible books was an avocation. By offering a small corner nook of books for sale at one of his Liberty Tax Service offices, his professional office was able to secure a heavily-trafficked retail spot on West Palm Beach’s commercial Clematis Street. And surprisingly, in what may be judged heretical in the virtual Age of Kindle, the Liberty Book Store has now taken over the entire space. What was a short stack is now a prime showcase for first editions, rare books, as well as an eclectic range of collectible used books, primarily focused on art, yachts, architecture, cars, what Donnelley calls “Boys Toys.”

“These are the books I like,” said Donnelley who will spend part of the summer in Colorado and Virginia obtaining his certification in rare book grading. “I’m also including a section devoted to local authors and Floridiana.”

Donnelley’s great-grandfather Richard Robert Donnelley founded RR Donnelley, widely-known as the world's largest commercial printer of encyclopedias, mass market magazines, mail-order catalogs, and best-selling books. When the elder Donnelley died in 1899, his son Thomas E. Donnelley became president; another son, Thorne’s grandfather, Reuben H. Donnelley was a company vice-president and headed up the Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation, an independent subsidiary that became the nation’s largest publisher of telephone directories. In 1961, Dun & Bradstreet acquired the Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation.

Donnelley serves on the board of the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association; his memberships include the Antiquarian Booksellers of America, the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and The Grolier Club. The newest member of his team is a shelter rescue, Katie.

Rare Book Cafe returns!

Rare Book Cafe returns to the air December 3 at 2:30 pm with a hot program of Florida authors for a world of listeners in wintry climes!

Sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, Rare Book Cafe can be seen on the Book Fair blog and on the Cafe’s Facebook page.

If you’d like to join us in the virtual studio audience on Google Hangouts, email us at rarebookcafe@gmail for an entry code!

Here’s the rundown on the guests:

-Born in Orlando, Florida, Rob Smith Jr started drawing caricatures at theme parks while still in high school. He attended the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida, the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, and Rollins College in Orlando.

Hired in 1985 as a draftsman and artist for the City of Orlando by Jeff Parker- who went on to work with Mike Peters on the Mother Goose and Grimm syndicated comic- Smith contributed editorial cartoons to the Winter Park, Florida Observer and did caricature work at places like Walt Disney World and Gatorland.

Smith joined the National Cartoonists Society in 1995. He has also been a member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.

His editorial cartoons are conservative in tone and focus on social issues as well as politics.
Smith drew syndicated editorial cartoons for DBR Media and a weekly cartoon for the Glenn Beck Program. His work has been recognized with awards from the Florida Press Association.

Smith currently contributes editorial cartoons to various sources, including the Glenn Beck Program, the late Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and various other conservative websites.

He created Swampy's Florida in 2005 with a focus on Florida history and travel. There are currently 15 Swampy's Florida books, 54 prints, 17 greeting cards and 2 DVDs. His website gives a colorful example of the range of his work.

-Dr Jim Clark was born in Washington, D.C. He began his journalism career with ABC News in Washington as a copyboy before joining United Press International as a reporter. He worked for the Columbia (S.C.) Record, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Raleigh News & Observer and for the Associated Press in Charlotte and Philadelphia. He has been honored with the George Polk Award, numerous awards from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, The Gerald Loeb Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award.

He is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne College, received his M.A. from Stetson University and holds a doctorate from the University of Florida. He joined the history faculty at the University of Central Florida in 1987. Clark has written for The Washington Post, Washington Star, Washington Monthly, The Nation, and Miami Herald. His six books range from a history of the 1950 US Senate race to an account of US Presidents in Florida; a history of the state and the city of Orlando; and two volumes of work by Florida writers for which he was editor.

Starting its second series, Rare Book Cafe is hosted by longtime Miami book dealer and appraiser Steven Eisenstein, who rushes to join us every Saturday after finishing Bucks on the Bookshelf, his weekly program on wdbfradio.com. Regular co-hosts include Thorne Donnelly, owner of Liberty Book Store in West Palm Beach, and Lindsay Thompson, owner of Henry Bemis Books in Charlotte, North Carolina. T. Allan Smith is the program’s creator and executive producer. You can see the program live from 2:30 to 3:30 pm EST, and on demand, on the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair’s blog, as well as Rare Book Cafe’s Facebook page.