A Booksellers Night Out

Tom and I went to a regional book auction last night, some interesting books, both children's titles and otherwise. Fun to see what sold and for what price, also who showed up and what they seemed to be buying.

Tom surprised me; even with all the years he has had to put up with stacks upon stacks of books and my total inability to organize my way out of a paper bag, I think that if he had had been holding the bid card we would have come home with a couple boxes of mixed lots. (Maybe I would have bid too if it weren't for the 6 boxes of books due to be delivered here tomorrow. Hopefully I will have all day to attempt to organize them before he gets home and sees that chaos has struck again. There can be distinct disadvantages to being a home based bookseller.)

A lot of absentee bids on items so there was more being sold than to the dealers and collectors in the room, but it struck me looking around that at 51 years old we had to be at least a decade younger than most everyone else there. I certainly hope that the absentee bidders were the younger collectors and dealers that just could not get away on a week day, cause we sure were a geriatric lot in the auction room.

A little ramble on writing...

One of my oldest friends is a natural born storyteller, she is funny, sometimes biting but always entertaining. It seems to me that for her writing is as effortless as breathing, and as someone who has to write 3 drafts to get one coherent, semi-grammatical paragraph, I admit to being pea green with envy.

I think that good writing is a lot like good singing; with some training and and a lot of practice you can learn to carry a tune, but very few people are born with a tuned ear and a true voice. So I practice, practice, practice....

A little bit of perspective

It's more than a little humbling to google your own name and not come up until the 11th page. Especially since I've been online since 1996...

Another Image of Childhood- 1960's

A Happy Nursery Book PLAY, story and pictures by Virginia Parsons. NY: Doubleday and Co. 1963.


I dare you to look at this cover and not smile!

Auction Price Realized- Harold's Trip to the Sky Crockett Johnson

I usually don't report on Ebay auctions but the auction of a possible first of one of the Purple Crayon books by Crockett Johnson fetched a most reportable $565.

Dust jacket Art- Images from Childhood 1960's

Some examples of 3 color illustrated dj art from the 1960's taken from books in my inventory.

THE GALLOPING GOAT AND OTHER STORIES by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Illustrated by Robert L. Jefferson. NY: Abingdon, 1965.








MYSTERY ON A MINUS TIDE by Marg Nelson. Jacket design by Catherine Smolich. NY: Farrar, Straus & Co, 1964.









A PLACE BY THE FIRE by William MacKellar. Illustrated by Ursula Koering. NY: David McKay, 1966.

Dust jacket Art 1960's Juvenile Sports Books

Well, one of the advantages of spending most of your time uploading pictures of inventory is you get to see some neat books. Here are a few images of some juvenile sports books from the sixties that we currently have in stock.



Stepladder Steve Plays Basketball by C. Paul Jackson. Illustrated by Frank Kramer. NY Hastings House 1969.














Last Summer To Ride by Patricia Leitch. NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1965. (First published in the U.K. in 1963 as: Janet, Young Rider.)












The Comeback Guy by C.H. Frick. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.