AbeBooks' Reading Copy

The La Times’ Jacket Copy blog pointed me towards this book – Woodcut by Bryan Nash Gill, published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book offers detailed prints of tree trunk cross sections, including oak, maple, locust, ash and cedar. There are also images of the wood blocks used to create the prints and accounts of [...]

Great news for the University of Virginia where an $896,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has been awarded to the college’s Rare Book School. The Rare Book School is a non-profit organization that sponsors classes for academics, historians, book collectors and archivists interested in the history of books, manuscripts and the written word. [...]

On this day in 1960, the landmark obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence ended with the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had been sued for publishing Lawrence’s novel, which details the steamy affair between the wife of a wealthy, paralysed landowner and his gamekeeper. All this seems a million miles away [...]

Taschen, one of our favorite publishers, has issued The James Bond Archives edited by Paul Duncan. The publisher claims the 600-page heavyweight book is “the most complete account of the making of the series, covering every James Bond film ever made.” Duncan spent two years researching over “one million images and 100 filing cabinets of [...]

As a result of transportation delays and service interruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy, AbeBooks customers may experience a delay in the confirmation of outstanding orders, as well as potential delivery delays. If you have a question about your order, please contact the bookseller directly or contact AbeBooks Customer Support. A little patience will go a [...]

Happy Halloween from everyone at AbeBooks. So far I’ve seen a witch, Madonna in her cowboy phase and Obi Wan Kenobi, while getting my morning coffee.

Chinese writer Mo Yan has won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature, reports the BBC.  Born Guan Moye, he writes under the pen name of Mo Yan, which translates as “don’t speak” in Chinese. The 57-year-old began writing while working as a soldier in the Chinese army and was first published in 1981. He is [...]

What are you reading this weekend? On my bedside table is Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill. It’s a memoir about working in the tree planting industry in British Columbia. I started reading the book a few days ago and was delighted to find the author describing life, planting seedlings, at the northern tip of Vancouver [...]

September was rare bible month at AbeBooks.com. Our top 10 list of most expensive sales from September includes three historic bibles with a combined age of 1,296 years and a combined value of more than $66,000. The most expensive sale was a Latin bible, a so-called Poor Man’s Bible from 1491, for $26,200. AbeBooks also [...]

Attention Canadian bibliophiles – the three-day Toronto International Antiquarian Book Fair begins on Friday 12th October. After a 15-year hiatus, the fair returned in 2010 and is currently going from strength to strength with a massive array of rare books set to be displayed.You can see a few of the gems from last year’s show below. My [...]