Bookseller Profile

Abebooks' uniqueness is our network of independent booksellers who work with us to provide the most diverse selection of rare, used and out-of-print books on the Internet. Take a moment and meet our member booksellers from around the globe. It is these sellers, with their experience, commitment and love of the used and out-of-print book business who help all our buyers find that treasure they've been looking for.

Whately Antiquarian Book Center

We are a group shop of 45 book dealers. Some have been in the business for years, some are "trying it out", some have shops they want to advertise and a few are selling their private libraries. Each consignor has a case which they pledge to keep stocked and serviced in a timely manner. My business partner Eugene Povirk and I (Barbara Smith) manage the shop and have 3 great workers who do weekends and other days when we might be out doing a show or on a book call. Ted is a retired College professor and also a consignor at the shop. Jeanne has been a consignor for 10 years and specializes in art, photography and botanical books. Karen used to work in a new book store and loves our non-automated style (meaning we don't use a cash register!).

Eugene started The Whately Antiquarian Book Center 10 years ago with a bookseller friend. I had been a consignor there from the start and when his friend decided to move on I became the next co-owner and we have been running it together ever since. Our different book knowledge complements each other which is one of the keys to our success. We also actively do book fairs around the Northeast (under our separate hats of Southpaw Books and Barbara E. Smith-Books) thus advertising the center and networking widely. We have close to 20,000 used, collectible and rare books under our roof. Though most books are arranged by dealer we periodically make an indexed subject guide to aid our customers. And we have a few special topic sections such as a large New England section, Antiques & Collectibles, Christmas, Reference and Leather and Decorative Bindings. We are in a large, high ceilinged Red Brick Schoolhouse just minutes off the Interstate along a popular antiquing route to Vermont and New Hampshire. Several years ago we had a real coup when we were able to get a long time rental on one of the last remaining signs along the interstate just before our exit. Our BOOKS & MORE BOOKS sign has been very successful and brings in new customers from the heavily traveled corridor from New York to Vermont. This month we just had the sign repainted. Here's a picure of it.

Legendary Book Stories
Eugene: A few years ago I went to New York City with my wife and daughter for a daytrip.I thought we might go to a few museums but they wanted to see a Musical so we parted ways. I was left alone in NYC. What else to do? So I went book scouting in a well known shop. I found a single volume of a 2 vol set on modern poetry from the early 1930's. It had Anais Nin's bookplate! Someone had written "Anais Nin's copy. Possible Annotations".Possible indeed! In a section on sexuality and the new poetry Nin had written 'must show Henry'. In another place she had written 'Sounds like June's neurosis'. And the book was only $22!

Barbara: The first legendary book story which comes to mind was my first experience with a quality book. In the early 1970's I worked for a bookseller in New Haven, Connecticut. We got a book call one very hot week in July and my boss sent me to clean out the contents of this attic in a modest house in one of the neighboring towns. There I am, perspiring buckets of grunge and reaching deep into all corners of this attic when I uncovered a beautiful vellum-bound copy of the 1909, Arthur Rackham illustrated edition of UNDINE signed by him and limited to 250 copies!! It showed me early on in my career that you never know where or when a treasure might appear. I eventually bought that book from my employer and held onto it for more than 15 years. Rackham became my favorite illustrator and his books are still among my favorites to buy and sell.

Collecting
Eugene: In a very sporadic and erratic way I collect postcards showing people at work & photographs of groups of people - usually anonymous - delegates, school children, fraternal groups etc.

Barbara: I used to not think of myself as a collector but when I look around my house I see that I really am! I have an ever growing collection of photography books. Some classics, but many photo books of other cultures - especially African tribal life of the Nuba, the Masaii and others and Eastern European cultures many which have largely disappeared. As my educational background was in Wildlife Biology and Natural Resources, I have a large working library of natural history books including bird guides for at least 20+ places around the world. Lastly, I collect cloth-covered books - usually in chintz or calico fabrics - in all subjects, which were especially popular in the 1920's and 1930's. The last is an affordable way to feed my love of textiles...especially as quilt and oriental rug prices have gone out of my range over the years. Though I deal in children's books I really only "collect" recent ones to read to myself, my nieces and lend to friends.

Favorite Books and Authors
Eugene: My other book hat besides the Center is as the owner of Southpaw Books. There I specialize in labor, reform, African- American studies, women's studies and other similar topics. One of the places my business name comes from is from Mark Harris' wonderful baseball novel- THE SOUTHPAW. My working class radical uncles gave it to me as a gift when I was 13. It was my first real introduction to literature and I have read it at least a half dozen times. Whenever I find a copy I get it and give it to someone as a gift.

Barbara: I grew up on the Lois Lenski books and am sure her regional series (STRAWBERRY GIRL, BERRIES IN THE SCOOP) helped fire up my love for different people and places throughout the United States. FLOOD FRIDAY was actually about some towns near where I grew up in Connecticut (as was the author) and though I was a wee lass at the time of the floods, for years we saw their destruction and the bridges that were never rebuilt. Other vintage favorites are the N.C. Wyeth illustrated classics such as THE BOY'S KING ARTHUR, THE YEARLING, ROBIN HOOD and others. In the adult realm, for my own reading I have just finished all of Chris Bohjalian's books. His MIDWIVES was made famous by Oprah but the others are even better- TRANS- SISTER RADIO (about transgendered people), LAW OF SIMILARS (about homeopathy)and WATER WITCHES (about dowsing). The most powerful book I've read this year was Greg Gibson 's GONEBOY. It is this fellow Massachusetts bookseller's account of his son's murder and his own "walkabout" delving into the details of the tragedy. A transfixing and amazingly uplifting read.

Unusual Book Story
Eugene: Ours is a group shop with 45 dealers renting bookcases. Sometimes it can be confusing and overwhelming for customers to find books with different topics in several different places, as books are arranged by dealer and only a few places by subject.A few weeks ago we had our annual Fall Sale which can be very busy as we still write all sales up by hand. There were two of us writing up orders when I overheard the other worker, Ted, talking to a customer about a book she was looking for - a novel from the 1850's on Vermont's Green Mountain Boys. By the time I had finished with my customer she was gone but fortunately had left the title of the book in our Wants notebook on the counter. It sounded familiar and remarkably the first bookcase that I thought might have it did and grabbing it off the shelf I raced out into the parking lot...just in case! An older, slower woman, she was just getting into her car. As I approached her, waving the book she excitedly told me she had been looking for it for some time as a relative- a great- great great great uncle was a prominent figure in it. She opened the book haphazardly and her finger fell on the first sentence of a paragraph. "My name is Dr. Williamson," it read. 'That's my relative!' she said in awe. Needless to say she bought the book.

Getting Into Bookselling
Barbara: Thirty years ago when I was living in New Haven, Connecticut, I decided I wanted a job connected to one of the two main loves in my life: flowers and books! So I went knocking on the door of every florist and every bookstore in town. And, lo and behold, a week later Whitlock's Book Store called me and thus my career began. There was an interlude of about 10 years during which I graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Natural Resources (with a botanical bent) and tried working in some co-operative businesses. But the book world found me again (or vice versa?) and it was like coming home. I find bookselling a wonderful way to work for myself and be surrounded with beautiful, luscious objects (as I specialize in Children's and Illustrated books and Cookery titles) and fascinating people. Never much of a history buff, I have learned more history through the books I've bought and sold in the last few years than in all my years of schooling. And I get to travel to book fairs in cities I wouldn't have gotten to visit otherwise. Though the Internet has definitely changed the nature of the business it has been a boon to us small booksellers. It sells our books when we are not there, which I love! And to far-reaching places all over the world. It makes the world seem like a slightly smaller place. Though it can be a hard way to make a living (it is full-time for both Eugene and myself) all the above keeps me in it, nose to the grindstone --or shall I say computer!

- Barbara and Eugene, Whately Antiquarian Book Center

The views of the author, expressed above, are not necessarily those of the Advanced Book Exchange