AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Our friends at English PEN, an organization devoted to literary freedom, are staging an exciting event later this month when 50 modern first editions are to be auctioned. However, these are no ordinary first editions. All the books have been annotated, usually at length and in great detail, by their authors specially for the ‘First [...]

Earlier this month I visited the ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair and the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show. Each year AbeBooks attends a variety of book fairs in North America and Europe. Visiting the book fairs is a great opportunity to meet our booksellers face to face and see some of the beautiful [...]

Today’s interesting old-timey find on the site is The Good House-Wife Made a Doctor by Thomas Tryon, 1692. We only have one original copy, priced at just over three grand, so one would have to be very interested indeed to purchase it. But for those chiefly interested in its contents and text, there are several [...]

Last week I was in New York. The purpose of the visit was to attend two antiquarian book fairs, but I always try to make time to visit booksellers in their stores. Nothing can replace the touch and feel of a beautiful book and talking to someone that is passionate about what they do. Walking [...]

Our latest video is brought to you by the letter P: Penguin, Puffin, Ptarmigan, Peacock and Pelican – apparently not even all of the “P-birds” in the Penguin pantheon. It also sheds some light on the different colored covers on the vintage Penguin paperbacks you no doubt come across in bookstores. Orange, cerise, dark blue, [...]

Last week I was in New York for the ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair and also the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show. As always, New York offered amazing bookstores and a buzzing city. I had some spare time, and in keeping with the book theme, decided to visit the main branch of the [...]

Let us introduce you to Lily King, one of the many booklovers on staff here at AbeBooks. Lily works in the Customer Support department as our Communications Specialist. She has been an AbeBooks employee for seven years, and a voracious reader all her life. More a fan of reading than collecting, Lily loves the freedom [...]

Debate broke out in the AbeBooks marketing department this morning over whether the world is judging popstar Justin Bieber too harshly for his most recent gaffe. On the off chance that you have managed to avoid the new thus far, here it is: the 19-year-old Bieber reportedly visited Anne Frank House in Amsterdam while touring. [...]

It’s been 70 years this month since Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s masterpiece of innocence, simplicity and wonder Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) was first published. Few books or stories have managed to capture the sense of joy and honesty of children, of mystery in the universe, and of the beauty of simple acceptance, nearly as [...]

At the height of the Great Depression, New York’s Phoenix Press was churning out pulp fiction as fast as it could print the books. Murder, mayhem, mysteries and molls – you will find them all in this selection of classic pulp literature, worth exploring for the remarkable vintage cover design as well as the stories. [...]