Walking into an antiquarian bookshop is a bit like opening a treasure chest; you never know what you are going to find and there are always hidden gems. I love knowing that I can walk into these stores and find something that I know has had a long and interesting life and belonged to people that cared enough to preserve and share them.

One of the shops I visited was Argosy Books in midtown Manhattan. Argosy Books was founded in 1925 and is now in its third generation of family ownership. There are books on the shelves, books in stacks and piled on tables. All combined with great lighting and small pops of colour from flowers placed throughout the store to make you feel instantly comfortable and welcome.

Argosy specializes in Americana, modern first editions, autographs, art, maps & prints and books about the history of science and medicine. If those aren’t up your alley, you will also find many other books in a wide variety of topics and with a wide variety of prices. If you have the time and you’re in New York, Argosy is definitely a store you should visit.

Another shop I visited was the Complete Traveller Antiquarian Bookstore on Madison Avenue. This store evolved from The Complete Traveller Bookstore which was the first travel bookstore in the US. As the name states, this shop specializes in collectible travel literature and has one of the best collections of authentic Baedeker travel guides. Baedekers are considered to be the first modern travel guides and can be easily identified by their distinct red cover. The books were treasured for their detailed historic accounts and the many fold out maps they contain.

This is a unique and specialized shop and definitely worth a visit if you love travel, history and culture.

No visit to New York is complete for me until I visit The Strand. Strand never disappoints and I always walk away with at least one, well really several books. This time I came home with something for my children, but I love it too: This is New York by Miroslav Sasek. We love these books in my house and have many others in the This Is…. series.

Most people know that Strand is a great place to go for affordable books, but it also has a fantastic Rare Book Room. Hop in the elevator and go up to the 3rd floor, and you’ll walk into a room filled with lovely old books, many of which can be found on AbeBooks.

Strand also has many affordable and collectible signed first editions. The day of my visit, they were getting ready for a book signing and talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz, discussing his newest book This is How You Lose Her.

Bookstores in New York offer a slice of history and small pieces of beauty that will draw you in and make you love books even more.

Guest post compliments of Maria Hutchison, AbeBooks Account Manager for our rare and collectible segment.

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 New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. For me, this building is the very best of what a library can be; beautiful architecture, unique books and a great children’s book collection.

Walking down Fifth Avenue, my first glimpse of the library was the iconic lions (top left), Patience and Fortitude. The library lions are instantly recognizable and mark the library as a special place. On this visit, there were two Lego replicas of the beloved lions (top right) inside the building – definitely worth a look for Lego lovers!

The NYPL is the second largest library in the US and the third largest in the world, with at least 53 million items. The building was designed by John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings between 1897 and 1911 and is stunning example of Beaux-Arts design. At the time of construction, the library was the largest marble structure ever built in the US.

In a corner of the children’s library I discovered an exhibit of the real Winnie the Pooh animals: Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Tigger and Pooh. The animals belonged to Christopher Milne, son of the author, A.A. Milne and the books were donated to the New York Public Library in 1987 by the publisher of the Pooh books (aside: if you don’t know the origins of Winnie the Pooh, they are fascinating).

When you look at these animals you can see they were well loved, with worn patches and bits of fur missing, this makes them that much more endearing . Knowing that the stories were based on treasured and well-loved toys makes them even better to read, I can’t wait to rediscover these tales with my daughters.

The real animals of Winnie-the-Pooh: Piglet

Guest post compliments of Maria Hutchison, AbeBooks Account Manager for our rare and collectible segment.

Published from 1959-1974, several of the original books are highly collectible, and demand was so high that many titles have enjoyed recent reprinting. Perfect for collecting, displaying, and enjoying – at surprisingly affordable prices.

More on Miroslav

I’d love to have some of these preserved and framed – they would look fabulous as a series in a home. And there’s some great nostalgia value as well, for those who were in the airline industry. Both my parents were – my father worked for Pan Am, my mother for American Airlines (she’s been to Hawaii nearly 40 times!), and they both talk very fondly about the way air travel used to be. Enjoy this gorgeous art from a time when air travel was a luxury and a treat.

Ever wondered what the AbeBooks HQ looks like? Probably not, but here’s a video tour of our office in Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, in Canada for anyone who is interested. As I sit here writing this blog post, I can see float planes taking off, ships and yachts going past, and the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. (There’s also a big supermarket but I’m not going to talk about that.) It’s a lovely place to work. However this video isn’t just views – you even get a glimpse inside the ‘bunker’ – a temperature-controlled, earthquake-proof room that contains an awful lot of servers. You will see where we work and play.

AbeBooks was founded in 1996 and we’ve had various offices over the years. We moved into this one, on the top floor of a glass-sided building, in 2008. Anyone interested in working for AbeBooks should visit our careers section.

Here’s the trailer for the On The Road movie. Take a look at the lovely Kristen Stewart and her crazy ‘hepcat’ dancing. I thought Jack Kerouac’s book would always make an awful film but perhaps I am wrong.

Our friends at BC Transit have just launched an interesting initiative around Transit Heroes – they are looking for engaging stories from people who ride public transport around British Columbia. You can write something, make a video submission or record an audio file.

If you do submit a story, then you will have a chance of winning some great prizes. AbeBooks has donated eight books ideal for any bus passenger in need of something to read (see above, they’re all books with a strong BC theme), but the prizes also include a ‘digital story package’ from Royal Roads University, a fancy GoPro camera for filming on the move, a Kindle and bus passes for a family or an entire class going on a field trip.

Public transport brings folks together like few other things in life, and everyone has stories about the people they meet and the things they see while on the bus. So British Columbian transit passengers, get storytelling. Surely somebody met their future wife or husband while on the Number 57?

It’s funny I should be writing about buses this morning because last night I started reading a book called The Art of Camping by Matthew De Abaitua. The opening chapter details how a couple of camping fanatics begin their journey to a faraway campsite by getting on a packed London bus during rush-hour while carrying massive rucksacks and pushing a toddler in a buggy. The reaction of the commuters had me in stitches… if looks could kill.

Grossman explores the rise of the global, high-speed passenger transport network in the 19th century and the indelible impact it made on Dickens’ work. The first Tube line, the Metropolitan, opened in 1863 – seven years before the author’s death – so I wonder what he made of underground trains. I’m sure he’d have written at length about the Northern Line if he’d ever ridden it.

This video review showcases some beautiful, beautiful posters. I found Posters of the Canadian Pacific by Marc H. Choko & David L. Jones to be hard to put down.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was hailed as one of the wonders of modern travel. The Canadian Pacific railroad spanned North America from the Atlantic to Pacific. The company also operated luxury hotels, passenger ocean liners, cargo ships, and an airline. To promote the company and also Canada as a destination, the Canadian Pacific produced more than 2,500 lithographic and silkscreen posters – 1,000 of which were created in its own design studio.

Posters of the Canadian Pacific showcases 300 of the best posters from this company. These posters were displayed in Canadian Pacific offices and travel agencies worldwide from the 1880s until the 1970s. They enticed millions to visit and perhaps even settle in Canada. The imagery is often about travel and leisure and the great outdoors – skiing, golf, hunting and beach life. There is a stunning array of Art Deco style work of the 1920s and ’30s.