What I did in my Summer Holidays. By Paul Foster. Aged 45 ½.

 

As another summer nears its end I wonder where it all went. This year my summer period of quiet time has been longer than most years but seems to have passed so much quicker.

For me the end of the London Olympia ABA bookfair signals the start of the regular downturn in business that lasts until the end of August (and with Olympia being staged a couple of weeks early this year, so my summer got longer) as people turn their attention to holidays, the Tennis at Wimbledon, keeping bored children entertained, and this year the Royal Jubilee celebrations, European Football Championship and the London Olympics.

                                                              Stourhead gardens.

At the end of July I exhibited at what must be one of the smallest bookfairs to be held in Britain. Just 12 dealers from as far away as Sheffield, London and Kent, housed for two days in a small hall next to the National Trust owned Landscaped gardens at Stourhead House in Wiltshire, all smoothly organised by 2 local dealers on behalf of the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA), of which I am a member. My elder Brother Stephen (also a book dealer) was among those 12 dealers as well and we were placed next to each other in a corner of the hall. This had the desired effect of containing us in one small area away from the other dealers but also meant that we could keep each other amused with the legendary Foster wit over the 2 days of the fair. We even sold some books, which took us both by surprise.

You might ask why we both booked the fair if we weren't expecting to sell any books (my accountant did), and the truth is it seemed like a good idea at the time. Although neither my Brother or myself are what you would call nostalgic people, when the PBFA decided to put on the fair we both got momentarily carried away with the idea of spending a couple of days in this part of the world since it is where we spent many of our school holidays when we were young.

As soon as I got there I realised the flaw in our plan. When we were young and foolish we would spend our days cycling, walking, hill-climbing, fishing, exploring the many forests nearby, and teasing our little sister (the price you pay for being the youngest of four children) but mostly fighting amongst ourselves (we have a third brother who was at the forefront of this part of our youth) and devising new ways to drive our parents mad. A job we accomplished some time in the mid 1980’s.

Now approaching middle age and foolish, we had stupidly booked ourselves in for 2 days of work (ok, so it’s not digging a ditch but it’s my blog and I’ll call it work if I want to) and so had to sit in a cold hall being grown up booksellers while looking out at the many hundreds of people enjoying the warm sunny weather outside. By the time we finished in the evening the gardens were closed and we had to take what comfort we could from the local pubs.

Stourhead was my only bookfair of the summer months and as many of my customers are distracted by things other than buying books, the auction season ends and the ‘phone doesn’t ring as much it creates a perfectly good reason for me to slow down my normally hectic work rate and enjoy a shorter working day, long lunches with friends and this summer I even, in a moment of madness, joined a Gym.

It started with great promise. A perky and enthusiastic trainer showed me around and encouraged me to give everything a go to get the most out of my membership. There were rows of strange looking weight lifting and muscle toning machines that mostly look like the weird contraptions that I saw in a late night documentary about the seedy side of Amsterdam on the telly a few years back. I tried them all and awoke some muscles in my back that have been asleep for years now. I also awoke an old sports injury that had not troubled me for years as well, and is now back with a vengeance. There was a 50 foot swimming pool, unfortunately full of bouncing aqua aerobics classes every time I tried to use it, a steam room (just plain wrong. If I want to get sweaty with strangers in a confined space I’ll take the London Underground, thank you. At least on the Tube I won’t be sat opposite a naked Rugby player who keeps stretching out, spread eagled, on the bench while exhaling loudly. Although, now I think about it, there was this one time on the Piccadilly line………), ‘spin’ classes (20 people in a room, all sat on static cycling machines and pedaling furiously while a bored instructor shouted “come on, pedal” over and over for 40 minutes while texting on her phone for the whole time), and, my favourite, the stretching mats. I don’t know who had the brilliant idea of putting cushioned mats down on the floor in amongst the machines but they should be congratulated. The chance to have a cheeky five minute ‘power nap’ as part of a strenuous work out was very welcome.

I spent 3 weeks going 3 times a week but then had to stop to take my annual summer holiday (Sicily this year, since you ask. First in the dusty heat bowl of a city that is Palermo, then 2 glorious weeks in a hill side villa just outside the beautiful old sea-side town of Cefalu, pronounced Chefaloo, on the northern coast).

                                                                     Cefalu town.
                       Photo presumably taken from a helicopter or jet-pack. Or a very tall boat.

With temperatures in the high 30's and 40's every day, keeping cool became a priority. Luckily, with a pool at the villa and the beautiful long sandy beaches of the Mediterranean sea just 15 minutes drive away it was easily done. I love the sea and particularly being in it. I am equally happy floating about on the top of calm, flat water or swimming my way over big waves and being thrown about as they come crashing down. I can, and often do, spend hours at a time in the water.

The only day not spent in a combination of Beach in the morning and pool in the afternoon, or vice versa, was a trip to see Mount Etna.

                                                         Mount Etna. Very, very big.

 

This involved lots of driving up winding mountain roads and the most alarming road warning sign I have ever seen. Inside the traditional red triangle was bright yellow and orange balls of burning lava falling to the ground. You will have to take my word for this as despite one of the passengers in my car being a photographer (albeit one who shoots fashion rather than landscapes), complete with fancy expensive camera, she slept as we passed the sign on the way up and on the way back down again. I wanted to stop the car so that we could get a picture of the sign but pulling up on a narrow mountain road with a few thousand feet drop to one side is considered bad driving even by most Sicilians, a nation of people with the driving skills of a drunk child, and who take extraordinary risks on the roads every day in what seems like a constant race to get wherever as quickly as possible while ignoring every other motorist, cyclist and pedestrian around them. Strangely, when they get out of the cars the aggression disappears and people are genuinely relaxed and friendly.

I would recommend the Island to anyone keen on good food and wine, beautiful landscapes, interesting, if sometimes brutal, history, and exploring a country not in a hurry to change, outside of the cities anyway. (whilst chatting to the car hire rep who was preparing my paperwork at Palermo airport I was asked had I been to Sicily before. I said yes, but the last time was 13 years ago. "Don't worry, nothing has changed" was the reply. It took me a moment to realise that it was not a joke and that they meant it as a good thing).

The Sicilian/Italian beaches mostly operate a Lido system whereby somebody takes over a stretch of beach and builds some basic facilities including showers, changing cubicles and a café (some more basic than others but mostly to a pretty high standard), provides lifeguards (one of the girls in our group spent many days flirting with one of these men thinking, at first, that his name was Salvataggio as he had it printed on the back of his tee-shirt), and generally takes responsibility for keeping the beach clean and safe. In return they get to hire out sun loungers and umbrellas, all laid out in neat lines with each lido choosing a matching patterned material on all of their umbrellas so that even if you swim, or take a pedallo, a long way out you can always spot your bit of beach to return to. For someone like me that spends uninterrupted hours in the sea and often gets carried away (and not just by the tide) it is reassuring to be able to see where my friends, not to mention my towel, Ray-bans and cash supply, are at any given time. This system also makes it easy to arrange to meet friends on the long beaches (‘we’ll see you at the red and white striped lido’ ). These Lido’s are spread out with ‘Public’ beaches in between for those that don’t wish to pay for the facilities.

                                                   I'm sat under the blue and white one.

 

                                      The 3 finalists in the Biggest Sun Glasses competition.
                                                     

Despite covering myself in factor 30 sun block at regular intervals, I find myself back home with a sun tan. People have commented that I look ‘healthy’, although one did qualify it with ‘for you, anyway’, and my body clock is telling me that the hard work months are just around the corner. Time to start setting the alarm clock a bit earlier in the morning, and paying attention to it when it does go off. The pages with ‘Lunch, so & so’ casually written across half the day start to be replaced with specifically timed work appointments in my desk diary and the number of incoming emails, telephone calls and post are increasing every day.

 

Oh, well. It will be Christmas holidays soon.

Are we still allowed to call it Olympia Bookfair?

After a very busy week in New York, both in and out of the marathon 5 day bookfair, I am back on British soil and making plans for my home fixture in the great travelling Circus (No Animals but plenty of Clowns) that is the ILAB International Antiquarian Bookfair Calendar.

New York is a fair unlike any other. The Buzz, the impressive Park Avenue Armory building that houses the fair, the Customers (where else in the world might you see Chelsea Clinton, Yoko Ono, Me and Steve Martin all in the same place at the same time), and the backdrop of one of the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world make it a tough act to follow.

                                                          (Yoko is the one on the left)

                                                                  (Who's Ya Daddy)

                                                      (Steve "just call me Steve" Martin)
      

                                            (Me, playing Hide-and-Seek, on Park Avenue)


This year my Booth partners (The approachable and chirpy James, and the flawlessly elegant Georgina Hallgate from Lucius Books in York.) and I drew the short straw. We got one of the rear wall booths, right next to the cafeteria area of the bookfair. Not a popular choice with either of us as it meant that we couldn't unpack and set up until very late in the first day, we got on with it and didn't complain (too much, or to the right people it seems).
To our surprise it turned out to be a good spot when the bookfair actually opened. Most visitors to a bookfair can't go a whole day without needing a sit down and a restorative drink or something to eat, so pretty much everybody who came to the bookfair walked by, and several into, our booth. I met many new customers, some known to me but who had always walked past me to get to the dealers that they knew, and many that I wasn't aware of before. I got several requests to go on my mailing list for catalogues and some of these new faces even bought books at the fair.

Added to the succesful business was some great evenings in wonderful bars and restaurants, including a sublime Japanese meal in a terribly fashionable eatery (not sure why they let me in) in the East Village where we watched an ultra-skinny Model make a single portion of sushi last over an hour before declaring herself full and leaving her friends to their third or fourth courses. I'd love to know what she made of our table, which resembled Chimps feeding time at the Zoo whenever our waiter minced over with another tray of the most delicious food only to see it all gone in a minute into our hungry, but appreciative, mouths.
If I can ever find it again (trendy places don't advertise, or even look like restaurants from the outside. You have to be in the know, Daahlink) I will work my way through the other half of the menu.

But after New York Bookfair comes, inevitably, London Bookfair, or Olympia Bookfair as it is generally known.
I am not aware of any threats from the International Olympic Committee about the name appearing on posters, adverts and websites, but maybe they haven't noticed it yet. A notoriously aggressive  body when protecting their "Brand", the IOC have used their great wealth and Power recently to take on opponents like the owner of the Olympic Cafe in Stratford who was ordered to change his business name or face legal proceedings. Faced with a large bill for new signage he got his paint brush out and simply painted over the O. Presumably he will wash it off when the IOC turn their attention to the next host city at the end of the games.

This year the Olympia bookfair is moving to the bigger exhibition hall, right next door to its regular home in Hall 2 since 1998. This increase in space has also seen an increase in booth sizes and the number of exhibitors. This means that there will be more books on show this year, even allowing for the handful of dealers who only bring about a dozen books (yet still seem to take hours to set up), than ever before.

The fair is being held a couple of weeks earlier than usual this year. This is to avoid clashing with the school half term holidays and the Royal Jubilee celebrations. The bookfair is a big draw for many but the ABA knows that pitching its flagship event against the first official holiday of the summer and an old Queen (......No. Better not.), is a battle it can't win.

The fair opens on Thursday 24th of May at 3pm and closes at 8.30pm. This is half an hour earlier than usual as some of the more vocal Gentlemen bookdealers resented work getting in the way of their drinking time.
Friday 25th the doors oepn at 11am until 7pm and saturday 11am until 5.30 pm.

With a series of Lectures, demonstrations of Bookbinding, Printing, Calligraphy and Engraving, Guided tours of the fair and the ABA roadshow (where visitors can bring in their own books for valuation) there is plenty to fill the three short days. There is even much hope that the dreaded catering will be vastly improved this year.

I will be on stand number 131 (just in the entrance and turn right, four stands in from the centre) so do stop by and say hello. The multi-talented Maz (Paul Foster Books is the official sponsor of the Mad French Bird) will be on hand to deal with those who choose not to talk to me.

If you want free tickets you can either download them from the official website- www.olympiabookfair.com , or let me know your postal address and how many you would like and I will send them by first class mail.


Paul.

New York Antiquarian Bookfair. 2012.

Coming hot on the heels of February's very successful Pasadena Bookfair in California, the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America) moves its Bookfair roadshow to New York in April for the 52nd Annual New York Antiquarian Bookfair.
Held at the the impressive Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, at 67th street, the fair has a preview evening on Thursday April 12th from 5 to 9pm and is then open friday 13th: Noon to 8pm, Saturday 14th: Noon to 7pm, and Sunday 15th: Noon to 5pm.

This is the Daddy of the international bookfairs. Over 200 of the world's leading dealers, and Me, will be exhibiting a wide range of Books, Manuscripts, Maps, Ephemera, Prints, Posters and just about anything that can be included under the umbrella of collectable printed words and works on paper.

I will be there, at booth A46, right next to the cafe area, no doubt resisting the temptation to blow any profts I might make on what must be the most expensive drinks outside of the Upper East Side Hotel cocktail bars, so I've been told.

I am sharing a booth with James and Georgina Hallgate from Lucius Books, based in York, UK. If you are passing, do stop and say hello. We are approachable (well, maybe me more than James), and will be happy to pass on any gossip that we have picked up during the set up days.


Highlights among my books at the fair will be; A very near fine copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. London. 1902.

A very Rare copy of T. S. Eliot's Poems, hand printed and published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press in 1919. This copy has the first state text and title Label to the front cover and is an Eliot family copy with the ownership name of his Cousin Abigail inside.

A true first edition, 1st state set of Dickens rare three volume novel, Great Expectations. London, 1861. These volumes all have the first issue title pages and text as per Appendix D of the Clarendon Edition of Dickens Works.

Finely Bound First editions of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. Both are the 1st published London editions, 1866 and 1872, and are lovely copies in fine full red morocco leather bindings, gilt, by Bayntun-Riviere Binders of Bath, U.K.

American Literature is covered as well, including nice copies of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, 1st edition. New York, 1929,

And Salinger's classic The Catcher in the Rye. Boston, 1951.

Among the earlier books is a copy of the rare 1608 "Judas" Bible. So called because of the miss-print "Then said Judas to the twelve, will ye also goe away" in John, Chapter VI, verse 67.

Bringing things up to modern(ish) times are some Punk items from the late 1970's. These include a full set of all 11 issues of the important San Francisco zine, Search and Destroy, 1977-1979, and 3 contracts, signed by Johnny Rotten (as John Lydon), Steve Jones, and Sid Vicious (using his real name, John Beverly), from the Sex Pistols ill-fated last tour, in which they ended up playing just 7 of the dates, in January 1978, all in the southern U.S, and then split up 3 days after the Infamous San Francisco Winterland gig, which ended with a cover version of The Stooges 'No Fun' as an encore and Lydon asking the crowd "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good Night".

I will also be giving away copies of my lovely new catalogue, so please ask if you would like one.


See you there.


Paul.

Paul Foster Books
49 Clifford Avenue
London
SW14 7BW
U.K

020 8876 7424

Email; paulfosterbooks@btinternet.com

Website; www.paulfosterbooks.com

Member of ABA, ILAB, & PBFA

If Time and Space are relative, how come they never came to any of my Birthday parties?

I have spent the last couple of weeks sharing my office with an odd looking man. Look who's talking, I hear you think (?).
I find myself staring at his face for several minutes at a time, and I can't quite pinpoint why.

The man in question is the Father of Modern Physics, the Nobel Prize winning, Gravity bothering, light-bending, haircut dodger himself, Albert Einstein.

I recently bought a fantastic portrait photograph, a Silver Gelatin print, taken by the Uber-Cool Austrian-American photographer Trude Fleischmann at Princeton, sometime around 1946.

Fleischmann was born in Vienna in 1895 and at a young age discovered an interest in photography. At the age of nine she was given a camera as a Christmas gift and started experimenting with it. As a young woman she studied Photographic arts at college in Vienna, among the earliest Women to do so. Her natural talent and willingness to push boundries soon made her an important part of the Viennese art scene during the 1920's and 1930's, and she photographed many of the cities cultural and intellectual elite.

Forced to leave Austria after the Anschluss in 1938, Fleischmann travelled through Europe and eventually moved to New York and set up a studio there, becoming an American citizen in 1942.
Her talent for interesting portraiture and street photographs meant that her reputation soon grew and she had a very succesful career in her new homeland. She died, in upstate New york, in 1990.




The image is a fairly well known one that I was quite familiar with, after all, it has been published many times over the last 65 years, or so. What I didn't know was that this particular portrait was Einstein's own favourite.

Loosely inserted into a pouch on the back of the frame is a hand written letter, in bright red ink, on the photographers own note paper with her name printed at the top, from Fleischmann;

"April 22, 1968.

Dear Karen,
Thank you so much for your beautiful card. I am so glad you both like the picture so much. It was Einstein's favorit picture as his secretary wrote to me after his death. And that makes me very proud. I took the picture in 1946 (I think) at his place in Princeton. He was so sweet and encouraging, he made me feel at home with him (I was so excited, but he made me talk, he listened to me, I was completely overwhelmed. He was the most wonderful person in the world.

Dear Karen, enjoy the picture.I hope it will bring you good luck.

Enjoy your life and have a wonderful time.

Love
Trude"



Why did Einstein favour this portrait over all others? There are some wonderful photographs of him.
I could bang on about the lighting, his expression, the relevance of the pipe, but I'm not going to.
I have criticised pontificating art "experts" many times myself and hypocrisy is not my thing, so, I will show the image again.

Just Look at it and decide for yourself if you agree with Einstein.





The boffins operating the Large Hadron Collider in their vast underground bunker near Geneva (Had the Bond villian's lease run out?) may think they have proven Einstein wrong about some of his theories, but I personally think he was spot on about this one.



I'm off to stare at it again.

One Moose, One Pecker, but no Beaver, Or The Toronto International Antiquarian Bookfair.2011.

The title of this blog is not just a shameless attempt to get picked up by google and the other major search engines by using often searched keywords.
When I mentioned to a friend recently that I was going back to Canada to exhibit at a bookfair she challenged me to capture pictures of a Moose and a Beaver. When I pointed out to her that there is so much  more to this wonderful country than those two stereotypical animals she started singing Celine Dion songs at me (Some of my friends are more enlightened than others). I eventually agreed to her challenge, just to get the singing to stop. I had no plans to even attempt to get images of either animal but , warming to her theme and finding herself hilarious, she was about to start working her way through the Bachman-Turner Overdrive back catalogue and I had to make her stop somehow.

I flew into Toronto with Air Canada. I assumed that the people working on the national airline would have some of the qualities of the many friendly, funny, kind and warm-hearted Canadian people I had met.
I was wrong.
I would have put it down to just plain bad luck in getting a flight crew who had got out of bed on the wrong side if the mob in charge of the return journey hadn't been even more miserable and rude.
Being made to feel like a naughty school boy for eight and a half hours is not something I enjoy (although there are rumours that one particular bookdealer does and pays a lot of money to make it happen). Even when I was a naughty school boy I got to go home after less than seven hours.

So, there I was. Back in Canada.

                                                                    The CN Tower.



After being interrogated by both Immigration and Customs officers at the airport they finally let me in and I made my way to my hotel, right on the lake front and beneath the wonderful CN tower. I chose to admire it from below. Being petrified of heights I stayed on the ground to save visitors the pathetic sight of me crying and screaming for my Mummy when I got to the top.

Toronto seems to be booming and all around the Harbour front there is major building work going on and mighty sky scrapers compete to creat a new skyline.

                                                              Canadian Building site.

Thursday was spent visiting local dealers and buying several nice books. Well done me.

Friday saw the serious business of set-up and the opening evening of the bookfair at the mighty Metro Convention Centre on Toronto's busy Front Street.

                                                    Metro Toronto Convention Centre.


It was while walking into the lobby of the centre that I noticed the first of several oversize animal statues dotted around the city. There it was. My Moose. The challenge wasn't to photograph a live Moose, just a Moose.

                        

                                                   A well travelled Moose.

After taking a snap of the impressive multi national Moose I turned around to see a five foot high Woodpecker on a post just outside of the lobby. These People appear to like their animal statues.

A Woodpecker made of wood.

This was confirmed by the six feet tall dog and cat positioned outside the pet entertainment centre (I am not making this up. This vast building is full of items and events to keep your pets amused and entertained and even inlcudes a 'Dine with your dog' area) which was next to my Hotel.

                                                                       Big Dog.

So, what of the bookfair?

This event was revived last year after a fifteen year hiatus and all three days were busy with a good mixture of Collectors, Librarians, Dealers and the just plain Curious. Any doubts that, having sated their curiosity, people wouldn't bother returning were quickly proven wrong with a steady flow of visitors on the opening evening. This continued right up until closing time on sunday and many happy customer were seen walking out with bags full of books.
A good mix of well, and not so well, established dealers from Canada, Usa and Europe, with a wide range of material meant that there was something for everyone and sales appear to have been good throughout the whole fair.

                                                                        My stand.

I sold well on all three days and came away happy with my weekend.

                                                                  More of my stand.

On the Saturday and Sunday of the bookfair the Convention centre was hosting a major dance competition in adjacent rooms and the sounds of Hip Hop, Drum and Bass and general pop music drowned out the muzac that was playing in our room. Some felt it was an improvement on the 'elevator music' that was piped into the bookfair, some could be seen putting their fingers in their ears.
One conlusion that I have drawn from this is that, on the whole, booksellers have a lot of rhythm and several could be seen busting some moves that surely would have put them in contention for the prizes on offer next door. I'll mention no names.


As I have written here before, Toronto is a great city with a full range of nightlife. The evenings were well spent with friends, trying out various bars and restaurants and getting caught up in the World Series of Baseball excitement that had the whole city buzzing. Saturday night also saw the Halloween revellers out in force in a range of costumes, most far too small for the cold weather of this time of year.

I look forward to exhibiting at next years event but will get there with a different airline and plan to spend some time searching out an oversize Beaver statue. I cannot believe there isn't at least one in the city somewhere.

Paul.

London Olympia Bookfair. June 2011.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Its off to York we go.

It is late August. I sitting here at my desk tanned, relaxed and a few kilos heavier after my annual summer holidays. After a busy year bookselling I need my rest and most years I can be found bobbing about somehwere in the Mediterranean or Adriatic seas during Augusts hot days and devouring the local fish at various restaurants in the evening. I have, on occasion, been known to take a sip of the local wine too.

This year I was lucky enough to have two holidays. One, on the beautiful Spanish island of Menorca, with very good friends of mine that also happen to be bookdealers. Amazingly enough there was little book talk during this holiday. This was partly down to the withering "Oh No. Do you have to?" looks that many bookseller's partners have perfected over the years when they hear the start of a hilarious bookselling related anecdote,  but mainly because we were far too pre-occupied with the importand issues of the day, like; What time was lunch?, What time was dinner?, and trying to keep the little people amused by letting them attempt to drown me in several different ways. Normally quiet and sweet natured children can be brutal when you poke fun at their 'Hello Kitty' armbands. Be warned.

My second holiday was with non-bookselling friends on the Greek island of Corfu. The Greeks discovered fishing with Dynamite in the 1970's and managed to not only kill off all the adult fish but the inafnts and the breeding grounds as well. The result is that Corfu is an island with very little fresh fish on it. It took me 3 or 4 days to get over this fact. I had been looking forward to trying new and different tastes. I got kebabs and feta cheese.
This holiday was markedly different from my earlier trip in many ways, the main one being that 2 of my friends have teenage boys who spent most of the holiday mumbling, pouting and shuffling along at a snails pace behind everyone else. Only the passing of bikini clad girls and huge plates of food made them break into a smile, and then not for long. If I was anything like them when I was their age, I would like to apologise to everyone I ever came into contact with.

The end of the summer means the start of the bookfair season. Traditionally the York Bookfair kicks off the whole thing in early september.
The largest antiquarian and second hand bookfair in the UK, York has some 220 exhibitors spread over three floors of the Knavesmire Suite at York Racecourse, for 2 days. This years the dates are; Friday 8th (1 - 7pm) and Saturday 9th (10am - 5pm).
Because of its fairly central position, York is easily reachable in a few hours from most parts of the U.K by car. The result is that the bookfair has dealers from Scotland, Wales and most of the counties of England. You will find part-time and fairly new dealers alongside some of the biggest and longest established firms that our little world has. This leads to an interesting mix of stock. All subjects, all ages and all price levels. This combination proves very popular with the bookfair customers and it is always very well attended. There really is something for everyone. Last year a regular customer of mine took great delight in showing me a couple of Edwardian postcards of his home town that had cost him just 50 pence each. Also in his bag was an early travel book that he had just parted with a few thousand pounds for. Many dealers make a point of bringing a wide range of stock to cater for this broad customer interest and there will be books, maps, ephemera and often assorted other odds and ends on paper for sale from pennies to tens of thousands of pounds.

After the lull of the Summer and with my batteries re-charged it is nice to look forward to the bookfairs again. After the June fairs in London my appetite for standing about in a brightly lit hall with a hundred other dealers for several days is very low. This follows the previous 9 months of assorted trips around the UK and overseas, from Toronto to Chelsea to Boston to Los Angeles to San Francisco to New York to Olympia. By mid June I don't want to see another shipping case again, or prepare yet another packing list to keep Customs officials quiet.
Now that it is all about to start again I feel myself getting excited at the prospect of the coming months of bookfairs that will kep me busy until June 2012. What I will find to buy? What I will sell?. What interesting new people I will meet, both dealers and collectors? Then there's the new restaurants and bars to try out, and the old favourites to be re-visited.

Should you want to see this glowing optimism in the flesh, I will be at stand number 7 on the ground floor for this years York Bookfair. Please stop by and say hello. If there is anything from my stock that you would like to have a look at, just send me an email ( paulfosterbooks@btinternet.com ) or call me ( 020 8876 7424 ) and I will bring it along. I have a few complimentary tickets available so please do ask if you want one (or two).


See You there.


Paul.