Happy Thanksgiving

Beautiful Old Bindings

Here are some examples of beautiful old bindings published in the late 1800's, most by the

Henry Altemus Company, Philadelphia.

 

 Faded, but silvery.

The Pathway of Promise:  Words of Comfort to the Christian Pilgrim

 Stories of the deeds of valor of the heroic children of France:
"To suffer for their beloved France, to die for her, has been a sacred privilege to these youthful patriots, rather than a thing to be shunned and abhored."  The boy on the cover is about to be dropped from a balloon onto the battlefield...

Lovely bookplate inside the Little Soldiers of France.

Samson is buff!

This one has a passion flower and lily design.

Recycled Blank Journals

Kam, Troy, and I  have been busy making blank books and journals out of old library books and school books.    The first step in the process is to take apart the old book, using an exacto knife to carefully remove the text block, then comes cutting blank pages of the same size and thickness.  The fun part is choosing pages from the deconstructed book to leave interspersed amongst the blank pages - these are often illustrations, or pages with cool ex-library marks like a perforated name stamp.

A stack of books with their new blank text blocks.

After the paper has been cut, Troy glues the blank pages together (perfect binding) using a metal brush to rough up the paper fibers before applying PVA bookbinding adhesive.  He also drills holes along the edge of the binding and sews the text block for added strength, adding decorative headbands and ribbon bookmark

 

Here's Troy with his headbands and ribbons.

  

Finally, Kam and I glue the newly formed blank text blocks back inside the old bindings.

Kam gluing the book back together.

You can see our finished results on our Etsy page, as well as on our own website.

Here's a journal made from a 1938 gardening book.

Ever thought of writing your diary in shorthand?

Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar

I attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS), a week-long intensive course on all aspects of bookselling, last month thanks to a scholarship from the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America).  The course was held at Colorado College and was taught by a faculty of ten people (but only one woman), including several rare book dealers, a couple of special collections librarians, an internet bookseller, and  Terry Belanger, University Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia, who started Rare Book School. The faculty were very generous with their time and knowledge, happy to answer questions, and even spent the lunch hour each day continuing the discussions begun in the classroom.  They were paid an honorarium of $500 to teach for the week, which was jam-packed with information ranging from the technical (websites, databases, photography), to the somewhat academic (how to collate a book from the hand press era -- well, that was academic to me, because that's not the kind of book I have handled), to personal stories of how each faculty member found their way into the world of books.  The experience of spending a week with around forty other booksellers was fun and worthwhile.

I have to say I was initially wary of the word "antiquarian," as the books we sell at Pistil are not rare, though we do have some hard-to-find titles.  "Antiquarian" doesn't necessarily mean books that are particularly old, rather it refers to books that are collected as objects, rather than books to, say, read.  Antiquarian booksellers sell to collectors rather than mere readers; for instance, they might sell modern first editions that are valued for their pristine condition and/or provenance.

One of the faculty members, David Prendergast, of  Stick Figure Books, actually has an online bookselling business, whereas the other bookseller faculty only make 10 to 20 percent of their sales through the internet.  David Prendergast himself referred to his business as "commodity bookselling," which made me think of widgets.  I personally think that books have the most inherent value when they are read and used.

Two points emphasized many times during the seminar were the importance of specialization, finding a specialty and learning about the books in that field; and "active" as opposed to "passive" bookselling:  for example, cultivating customers and selling to them via book fairs and print catalogs, rather than only listing passively on the internet.   We carry a general stock at Pistil, but we do have areas of emphasis that are largely a result of our physical location here in the lovely state of Washington:  Northwest regional history, Native Americans, natural history, do-it-yourself.

Inspired by my CABS learning, I created a list of 50 books on the theme of "The Birds and the Bees," some books on nature and human nature, and today posted the list to the Ex-libris listserv, which is used by librarians and booksellers.  I was hesitant to post there at first, after watching the list (okay, lurking)  for a few weeks and seeing antiquarian booksellers post their lists of books in the hundreds to thousands of dollars price range, but screwed up my courage and did it.  As a result,  I received one order from my list this afternoon, for a $35 zine, and one inquiry from a blogger asking if she could link some of my images on her blog:  Awesome Archives.

My Job at Pistil Books by Kam M

Kamposer at work.

My job consists of cataloging and pricing sheet music. My favorite part of this job is being surrounded by shelves of interesting books and people.  Oh, and the beverage service. I have a classical music background, so if a piece says TTBB, I know what that means and can price accordingly.  For this I went to grad school.

I am paid in gastronomic currency as well as cash money and book credit.  Amy and Sean are what you would describe as laid-back bosses.  On-time is a relative concept.

Currently I am reading Thomas Kinkade (really), RL Stevenson, Zane Grey, Unamuno, Stephen King, Mona Simpson, Galsworthy, and Goethe.  The good stuff balances the garbage.

So far “The Adventures of the Prancing Piano” is a stand-out among the books I have seen at Pistil, and I’ve seen a lot.

Lunch break at Pistil Books.

Pistil Outdoor Book Sale 2012

Pistil Books had our annual outdoor book sale yesterday, offering close to a thousand books culled from our shelves (making room for more!) for one and two dollars.  I spent the past week, along with Kam, our newest staff person, pulling books for the sale.  The selection was pretty good, about two-thirds non-fiction of all sorts to one-third fiction; lots of great books that are just "too common" on the internet market.



Our first customer of the day was Jon Strongbow, a longtime Pistil customer and friend who brought us the gift of a signed copy of The Ocean of Time, his beautiful dreamlike publication featuring realistic (and surrealistic) drawings of Seattle locales.

Lots of friends came by to hang out, catch up, and drink lemonade and beer.  One group largely made up of current and former Pistil staff discussed mushroom hunting while another group of motorcyclists caused my eyes to glaze over with their bike talk.

"The mushroom was this big!"

A young man dressed all in black, a vegan, was happy to purchase a copy of the classic eighties book Knitting Wildlife.  He thought he could get his sister to knit him a sweater from the patterns in the book, perhaps the "Extinction is Forever" cardigan.

Grrrrrrrrr.

Sean and I enjoyed looking through the titles people had chosen as they brought up their stacks of books to purchase.  As one woman handed me her pile of three books, she asked, "Do you have to look at them?" rather irritatedly.  She had Sexual Perversity in Chicago sandwiched in the middle of her small pile, upside down.

A customer's stack.

 

 

 

 

Kneeling in the stacks.

Tim proudly wears his Pistil T-shirt.

True Anatomy

From our Etsy shop:

True Anatomy - A Visual Chart of the Actual Workings of the Human Mind

A colorful 5 1/2"w x 8 1/2"h multi-layered chart of of the true workings of the mysterious human mind. See into the subconscious where speed boats, roasted turkeys, light bulbs, hammers, death cap mushrooms, toads, tractors, and small squirrels influence your dreams and actions. The human psyche revealed in this surreal collage made from cutting up books!