I must say that I’m relieved about one thing. Had the 49ers won today, they would be playing in the Superbowl game on Sunday, February 5.

So what, you ask?

Well, Feburary 5 is the last day of the San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print, and Paper Fair. Had the 49ers been in the Superbowl on February 5, all of San Francisco, fervent football fans or no, would have skipped the book fair to watch the game. While I know that the worlds of book collectors and football fans rarely intersect, all Bay Area citizens, even those like me who don’t follow football, would have been home watching their home team play in the big game. Now that two East Coast teams are in the Superbowl (New England Patriots vs. New York Giants), most San Franciscans won’t give a hoot. Maybe they could give the book fair a try?

See you in the stacks!

I’ve been working on preparing for the February book fairs this week. Preparing starts with taking an inventory of book fair supplies.  Since I’ll be doing the fairs in San Francisco and Pasadena one right after the other, it’s crucial that I have enough supplies. If you’re not a bookseller, you might be surprised to see the amount of supplies needed for a book fair.  And if you are a bookseller, you might like to know what I recommend you bring to a book fair. The supply list I compiled was created with the help and advice of quite a few experienced booksellers, and you can see it by clicking here.

Once the supplies are ready, the next step in book fair preparation is to check each of many pieces of ephemera I’ll bring to the fairs and to make sure each piece is stored in its appropriately sized plastic sleeve and that each sleeve has a price sticker on it. Ephemera — flat, small, and easy to store, but I have a lot of it, and  pricing it can take a while!

Over the weekend, I plan to catalogue about a dozen books, recent acquisitions I plan to bring to the fair. This will be simple in some cases and will require a bit of research in others. Either way, I’m looking forward to having the weekend to work. Did I mention that both Tom and Huck’s basketball teams have a bye this week? That means no games this weekend, which means no driving kids to and fro in the car. It means that while they play with the neighbors, I can work on books (which, to me, is like play). If I’m lucky (and I think I’m pretty lucky), Thoughtful Husband may even volunteer to take on the task of cooking dinner Saturday night.

All work will temporarily be halted on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. That’s when our San Francisco 49ers will play the New York Giants to see if, after 18 long years and decades after the end of the Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Ronnie Lott, Steve Young “dynasty”, they will go to the Superbowl! Note to diehard sports fans who may read this blog:  I do not normally follow professional football, but my 11-year-old son Huck does. He’s had me watching each 49er game, and when I watch it with him, I enjoy it in a way that I hadn’t before. It kind of reminds me of one of my favorite films, Rudy, and of how that little football movie inspires me in so many ways, even though I sell books instead of playing football. When it comes to following football, I am what some might call a “bandwagon” fan.  That is to say that I follow football when my hometown team is winning — much the same way I followed baseball when the Giants finally won the World Series of Baseball in 2010. Perhaps not a “true” fan in that sense of the word, but happy when my hometown teams make us proud.

See you in the stacks!

Announcing:  The Collective!

No, it’s not my Catalogue #2, but it is a catalogue that features a few of the many books I’ll be offering for sale at the San Francisco and Los Angeles (Pasadena) Antiquarian Book Fairs next month. I like to think of this new catalogue as a nice bridge between Catalogue #1:  Dante Alighieri and Catalogue #2:  Subject As Yet Unannounced. It’s Catalogue #1.5

This catalogue, the collaborative effort of seven ABAA booksellers including yours truly was the brilliant idea of my colleagues and friends Brad and Jen Johnson of The Book Shop in Covina, California.  Each bookseller is exhibiting at both fairs and each was given two pages on which to show off some of his or her best books to be offered for sale at the February fairs. Brad and Jennifer designed the cover (image of front and back above) and did all of the graphic design and layout, a couple of others wrote the Terms of Sale and Introduction pages, and we each contributed two pages of books for sale, featuring some of the treasures we plan to bring to the February fairs. We divided the costs of printing.

The catalogue is available as a downloadable PDF. You can click here or on the image above or on the image in the far right sidebar of this blog (top right corner).  If you’d like a print copy, most of those will be distributed at the fair, but I do have some available for mailing. Just let me know by leaving a comment or sending an email to chris AT bookhuntersholiday DOT com.

See you in the stacks!

This is our family dog, Molly:

She is a sweet little dog, a Spaniel. When Thoughtful Husband and I moved into our home, many years ago, his sister gave us a dog. He was a large but gentle dog, a Golden Retriever that we named Buck. As he got older, he went blind. Because he could not see, he quit moving and playing and laid around in a corner all the time.  Our hearts broke for him, but we didn’t know how to help him.  Our vet suggested that a blind dog might benefit from a companion, a sort of “seeing eye dog” for himself. She reasoned that if Buck heard the sound of  another dog’s footsteps and barks, he would eventually interact a bit.  Tom and Huck were young at the time we decided to get a second dog — around 3 and 5 years old.  I needed to make sure that the new dog would get along very well in a house with small children and an older, blind dog.  After some help and advice from our vet, we got Molly. Here she is as a puppy:

Molly is a sweet dog.  She and Buck got along well, and I do believe she made Buck’s life better until he finally died. They often dozed off in a corner right next to each other and she did get him to play with her a bit.

Now, she keeps me company here at home while Thoughtful Husband is at work and Tom and Huck are at school.  I often think of her as Book Dog.  She looks like a dog from an illustration in a Victorian children’s book I own, she is the perfect size for cozying up next to me on the couch while I read, and she lies at my feet while I sit at my desk and work on books each day.

It turns out that I am not the only person who thinks about her dog as a literary asset.  Meet Condescending Literary Pun Dog.  This dog is awesome, totally awesome.  He has a sense of humor and he is extremely well read.

I found out about him here. I highly recommend reading the rest of these hilarious puns. Not only are they funny, but they’re a little quiz to see how well-read you are.

Enjoy!  See you in the stacks!

The San Francisco Book Book, Print, and Paper Fair takes place February 4-5, 2012 at the Concourse Exhibition Center.

The following weekend, February 10-12, 2012, The 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair takes place at the Pasadena Convention Center.

For the first time, I’ll be exhibiting at both fairs. Back-to-back. As soon as I finish in San Francisco, I’ll be heading down to Pasadena for my first ABAA sponsored book fair.

Wish me luck. And if you’ll be in either the San Francisco or Pasadena areas during the above mentioned dates, please leave a comment below or contact me by email (chris AT bookhuntersholiday DOT com), and I will happily send you a free pass to either or both shows.

See you in the stacks!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012!

Since my previous post was all about reading, I thought I should update my reading list (over there on the right sidebar of the blog) so I can share with you books I recently either bought or borrowed from the library because I think I will enjoy them. Perhaps you will, too, though I know that literary tastes vary. That’s part of what makes books fun. I often learn about books I have never heard of from you, readers of this blog. Several times you have recommended books to me and most of the time they are books I enjoy.  Here’s my winter reading list:

The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco

Reamde, by Neal Stephenson

My Life as Laura: How I Searched for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself, by Kelly Kathleen Ferguson

The Provincial Lady in Wartime, by E.M. Delafield

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto: Food, Friendship, and the Making of a Masterpice, Edited by Joan Reardon

Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, by Paul Gallico

Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge, by Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster

Spencer’s Mountain, by Earle Hamner, Jr.

 
I know it’s likely that some of you may be surprised that I would enjoy a domestic novel like Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris and novels written by authors in completely different genres, like Umberto Eco (literary/historical/philosophical) and Neal Stephenson (science and cyber fiction). These seem to have nothing in common with another. Well, I’ve said it before and I will say it again (with all credit due to Walt Whitman):  “I am large. I contain multitudes.” As most of you no doubt realize by now, I like books of all sorts.

Winter seems the perfect time for hunkering down with a good book, a warm fire, and a cup of tea (or your beverage of choice). What’s on your reading list this winter?

We’re hosting dinner for 10 at our house tomorrow night, and I’ve made ahead as much of the food as I can. Tom and Huck, who have been off of school all week, were recruited today to help clean the house. Despite not being thrilled to do chores during Christmas vacation, they did a fantastic job. In fact, I think that the clean house they left me is the best Christmas present they can give me. It was at my behest that they did these tasks, but they did a good job, and spent most of the day making our house look nice. Having company for dinner is good motivation to really clean the house well.  The boys washed windows — inside and out,  cleaned baseboards, helped change sheets on beds, cleaned the bathrooms, and cleaned up the dumping ground room we affectionately call the Play Room. I’ve been trying to figure out where to put all of the books that are usually all over the dining room table and another table that is usually where the Christmas tree is now baking batches of fudge, toffee, and cookies and am almost finished. Dinner is prepped for tomorrow night’s feast and presents are wrapped and under the tree. Here are a few pictures of the tree and the living room (probably the cleanest I shall ever see it). Note the absence of antiquarian books in the photo. This cleanliness and lack of book clutter surely will not last more than 24 hours, so enjoy it while it lasts.

And here are some of my favorite book-related Christmas ornaments. (Yeah, that’s right. I have book-themed Christmas ornaments. Just a few.)

This is a lovely printer’s device that was made into an ornament by the very talented and crafty Jennifer Johnson at The Book Shop in Covina, California.

I made my mom buy me this ornament a few years ago. She thought it was ugly (I do, too), but I laughed when I read it and had to have it:

My mom bought me this ornament in 2007, the year I started Book Hunter’s Holiday. I’ve written about it once before:

I got this ornament when I went to Rare Book School at University of Virginia. I took a short field trip to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. Since I am a big fan of Thomas Jefferson, Rare Book School, and blue and white china plates, it seemed like the perfect souvenir of my trip. (That’s Jefferson’s home pictured on the plate.)

I got this ornament at the Surveyor’s House (aka one of the many childhood homes of my favorite author, Laura Ingalls Wilder) when I visited De Smet, South Dakota on an RV trip across country with my family.  This particular house is featured in Wilder’s book, By the Shores of Silver Lake.

And last but not least is this little memento of the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. I got it during this year’s Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair.

Thank you, dear readers, for reading the blog. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, know that I am thinking of you and am thankful for you this holiday season. You’re part of what makes bookselling such fun!

And on the domestic front, I’m trying to get prepared for Christmas. One of my brothers and his family are visiting us the week before Christmas and on Christmas Eve, and my other brother and his family are visiting us after Christmas and during New Year’s. We’re also hosting a group at our home on Christmas Eve. In anticipation of a full schedule, I have been busy cooking ahead and freezing a few things for the next week. I cooked four lasagnas (if you’re going to go to the trouble to make one, you may as well quadruple the recipe and have a few extra dinners ready to go during the busy basketball season in January). I also prepared and froze our traditional Christmas morning breakfast casserole. It’s made of eggs, cheese, bread, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and butter — so bad for you it is delicious and definitely indulgent enough for holiday dining. That way I can enjoy Christmas morning. I just have to defrost the casserole the night before and then pop it in the oven when we are enjoying the morning. I then made a couple loaves of Applesauce Cinnamon Bread and froze those for quick snacks for the boys, their visiting cousins, or anyone else who drops by.

As a busy mom who is trying to run her own book business, I find great comfort in having a few extra meals in the freezer for busy times. Each week, I am trying to find a recipe that I know will freeze well, that is, that I know will still taste good when I finally decide to defrost and cook it. I then double the recipe for at least one dinner. We eat one dinner that night and put the extra dinner in the freezer for future busy nights or other emergencies. It’s my goal to get up to 11 meals in my freezer so that I have a variety of things from which to choose. This seemed like a chore at first, but if I make a fresh pot of tea and play music I like while I do it, it’s actually not so bad. I almost enjoy it. And then there’s the feeling I get a few weeks later, when I have a homemade, ready-made meal in the freezer to defrost and cook on a busy evening –  I am always so relieved and glad I took the time to do it. If we are going to survive four evenings per week basketball practice (between Tom and Huck, who are on separate teams, each team practices twice a week), then I will be doing myself a favor to have dinner already planned once in a while.

On the agenda for this weekend is to bake some fudge, candied walnuts, and my grandmother’s Christmas cookies.

I don’t mean to bore you bookish types with all of my kitchen goings-on. It’s just that some of my friends who also work and have children and I are always discussing ways to streamline things we need to do around the home — like making dinner every night. This part of the post is for them.

And, last but not least, we have a houseguest for the weekend:

Meet Watson! He’s our friend’s dog and we’re taking care of him while she’s away for a few days. He’s a sweet, three month old Bernese (or is it Burmese?) Mountain Dog. He has become fast friends with Huck:

Our little spaniel, Molly, however, isn’t quite sure what to make of this new arrival:
All for now! Tom and Huck just finished up school for the next couple of weeks, so we’re looking forward to having the leisure to get in the Christmas spirit!

See you in the stacks!