I started a blog of this name in 2006, which turned into a monthly column in Book and Magazine Collector. As the name suggests it was written to encourage book-lovers to take a different approach to building up a collection. There are millions of old books out there, and many are far more interesting than the same old titles and themes trotted out by established authorities like… well, Book and Magazine Collector, for one. I hated all those ‘Hundred Most Expensive Books You’ll Never Own’ articles and encouraged collectors to look elsewhere for inspiration. I still do…
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Meet the PBFA Episode 1: The best book fairs in the country!
I’ve always loved book fairs. You never know what you’ll find because the quality and variety of the books, ephemera, maps and prints is simply staggering. In the last year alone I’ve bought and sold Elizabethan vellum documents, unique diaries,…
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The Murrell Arms, Barnham, Monday 10th July 1911
This wonderful image is from an album of 24 large, sequential photographs taken between the 28th of June and the 21st of July 1911. They show a gang of workmen laying a water pipe along the Yapton Road, Barnham, Sussex….
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1880s Publishers’ Bindings : Books As They Were Bought, Part 10
The 1880s was when the modern world began. Socialism, mechanisation and mass consumerism came of age, not necessarily in that order. And cheap books, published in their millions, flooded onto the market everywhere from railway platforms to Royal Galas. We…
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ANLAOB Episode 10 : Sussex Maps and Women’s Cricket
You never know what you might find at a book fair. Here are some maps of Sussex including unique sketch maps of Rye and Winchelsea, a geological work of art, a view of Eastbourne, a present from Brighthelmstone and a…
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The Wasp Factory: Lost Movie Script Discovered at Book Fair
First, the good news: it’s true. This really is it. It turned up in July 2018 at The ETC Bloomsbury Book Fair at The Royal National Hotel, in London. (As I may have mentioned a few times before, you never…
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