Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2009 Issue

Spend an Afternoon in the World of Books

Langley Harbor on a warm day

Langley Harbor on a warm day


By Bruce McKinney

Whidbey Island, an hour from Seattle's downtown, is a worthwhile day trip, a pristine place where a community of 58,000 lives and tens of thousands visit, if mostly in the summer. Here there is at Langley, Washington, in addition to the requisite groceries and nick-knack shops, an assemblage of book sellers who share a neighborhood and belief that the world of books and images shall endure even as the drum beat of multi-dimensional thought daily subverts old reading habits by offering a bland blend of internet calories that, while sustaining life, deny the poetry of language, the power of image and the touch and possession of the real thing: works on paper. This book selling community practices their trade in a place that, though only 60 minutes distant from Seattle, is a step away from the daily bustle and a step back in time: the day or weekend jaunt where both the casual reader and the committed collector can find lunch, things to look at and some reading or discoveries to take home.

That these booksellers practice their trade in the shadow of Microsoft and Amazon is a reminder that the nearby presence of these behemoths does not diminish the commitments of everyone for the traditional alternatives. Someday, in the Museum of Natural History we may see an exhibit for booksellers in the same light we view scenes of ancient man in a pas-de-deux with mammoths: as the way it was but is no longer. For today these dealers adapt and organize themselves as a destination: a day away, to some extent a step back in time. The what, where and when of book buying and selling changes and so too do booksellers' approaches.

This said, on the pages of the New York Times that arrives daily to in part replace the Post-Intelligencer that slipped beneath the waves a few months past, the news is more and more about Google, Amazon and eBay this and that. The Times, that clearly loves books, finds every reasonable excuse to write about them and to celebrate their continuing existence even as their own stock drops and long time readers pinch the fresh editions for signs of life as expressed by heft. Life is precarious for all things printed these days.

In a world that seems more and more to have traveled with Columbus to the new, those who have stayed behind seem attracted to the shore, looking ever out to sea, wondering when everyone will be coming back. They may not but neither will these sellers of the printed word depart from their DNA driven quest for consistency with their resonant inner voices. Their generation knows the sound even as their children and their children's children glance away in disbelief that such old ideas still resonate with anyone. Twenty-somethings now live in a different place, of thought restructured by repeated internet searches into thought processes that circle the globe in seconds to deliver the history of coffee but none of its taste.

That is why these Whidbey Island holdouts march on. They long ago tasted the drink. The chemical formula, available on line, may be entirely accurate and satisfy the intellect about the facts. But books and images are about something much more. There is feel and smell, color and scale along with human interaction, opinion and debate. The world increasingly is settling for the facts. Just across the bay from Seattle a few are holding out for the feeling. They understand our heritage and who we are. They have it right.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025 Sotheby’sBooks, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to ModernNow through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
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    Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
    Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025 DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
  • Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025 Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.

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