AbeBooks' Reading Copy

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 [...]

I happened across this 1920 French edition of a Rudyard Kipling book of stories – Les plus beaux contes – which translates to “The Most Beautiful Tales” or similar. It could perhaps be Just So Stories. Either way, this edition is illustrated with 24 engravings by Dutch painter Kees van Dongen. I loved the ones [...]

Louis Wain was a British artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, best known for his whimsical and chaotic drawings of cats. If you’ve come across any of Wain’s art, you know it’s memorable. The cats and kittens are depicted with large, wide eyes, often with crazy, spiky fur, and with psychedelic patterns [...]

While looking for good fodder for our wacky, fun and ever-growing Weird Book Room, I will often come across a book with a title or premise that seems weird at first, but then after a bit of delving, makes perfect sense. And in some cases, like today’s, the book turns out to be fascinating and [...]

The Perogy Cat was born in 2003, which makes today his 10th birthday. If you want to be specific, it is the 10th anniversary of the first Perogy Cat drawing by Gareth Gaudin. If you just went: “what?” and enjoy comics, here’s a thing you might like to know about. Gareth Gaudin arrives at his [...]

Is there a creature more fantastical than the dragon? From fierce, fire-breathing serpents to wise telepathic companions, literature has told tales of these mythical beasts for generations. Some of the best fantasy, science fiction and myth revolve around them. Fierce or friendly, wise or goofy, winged and scaly, literature is full of remarkable dragons to [...]

While doing some research for a feature, I came across a Penguin imprint I hadn’t seen before – Ptarmigan Books. I knew it was Penguin immediately, not just from the name (though I suspected, because they do have a theme – Penguin, Pelican, Puffin… why not Ptarmigan?) but also because the cover art struck me. [...]

In 2010, I was lucky enough to visit Key West, Florida. A wonderful escape from Canadian winter. While there, I spent an enjoyable couple of hours touring the grounds and house of Ernest Hemingway’s Key West Home, where Hemingway lived from 1931 until 1939 with his second wife (of four!), Pauline. We were certainly enchanted [...]

When is the last time you stopped by the Weird Book Room for a fix of literary oddities? Here’s a little something for you: these images are just a drop in the bucket of the many strange and fanciful photographs found in the weird book Why Paint Cats by Burton Silver and Heather Busch. There [...]

This lucky cat contemplating his next great read is Henry. Henry is one of two fur-acious readers from David Mason Books in Toronto, Ontario. David Mason Books has been in business for 40 years and is home to over 60,000 books, including 19th century British and American literature, modern first editions, Canadian literature, science, travel [...]