Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

Sarah,

What is your favorite book about books?

Steven
 

Steven, sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you on this one. Charlie Everitt's fine book "The Adventures of A Treasure Hunter" is near the top of my list, if not at the very top. I don't care if some of it was ghost-written after his death (I've heard rumours that this may be the case), it's still a great book. Check my books-about-books list from two years ago for others (in the archive, August 17, 2006).
 

p.s. I can't NOT mention John Carter's wonderful book the "ABC for Book Collectors" - I used to read it on the bus on the way to my awful bookstore job when I was just out of college, and was yearning for information about rare books and the secondhand book trade. It gave me what I most needed at that moment in life - KNOWLEDGE and HOPE.
 

Thanks much! I will see if I can find a cheap used copy of both; although, at least with Everett's book, I'm sure the biz is so much different now with the Internet.

Why the awful bookstore right out of college? A 'better-than-thou' owner with a sour demeanor, greasy hair, and a wretch of a wife who assisted in spreading poisonous venom on their underpaid employees?

~S
 

No, my boss at the bookstore was terrific... but I was young and stupid and didn't play well with others and there isn't much else to be said about that.

I will say, however, that I received an extremely valuable education there, one I consider more valuable than the degrees I got in school. Being around books all the time, and book people, set me on the road to becoming an autodidact. Not to mention paving the way toward running my own book business.