6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old Stories about Old Books in the Old World, April 22, 2008
Although I love "Books About Books";I ,like the majority of those who love books and reading ,know very little ,nor have had the experience of searching for,buying and selling Antiquarian books and Ephermera.While never part of that world,I found this book about it, a delightful read.
To the authors of this book,it was their whole life. They not only had the experiences they tell us about;but also made a successful career of it and made their living at it. They are no longer with us; Leona Rostenberg passed away on March 17,2005 at the age of 96,while Madeleine Stern passed away on August 18,2007 at the age of 95.They spent their entire adult lives living and working together. The world of books and their friendship were everything to them.
This book is mainly comprised of the journals they kept of their trips to England and Europe during the years after WWII ,from 1947 to 1957.
Their descriptions of what things were like after the destruction and hardships of recovery after the war are as much of what this book is about as the rare books they are able o find.Of course,as in any endeavor,the people you meet and the friendships that develop along the way,are what most enjoyments of pursuits are all about.
It is amazing ,the amount of 15th -18th Century books that were available ,for what seems today like pittance. The books they find,and talk about are virtually unknown to me,and very shortly after being found ended up in special collections in libraries,universities and with wealthy collectors. The experiences of the authors lasted for only a decade or so .That was the time when money was hard to find,collections all over Europe had been plundered,scattered about,and great rareties could be found in many bookstores.All that soon ended,when word got around and hords of dealers started to started to swarm the continent and these sorts of gems were scooped up and rapidely skyrocked in price.Where real treadures could be found for the price of a meal or less, they soon became available at a "King's Ransom";if at all.
A wonderful read ,for Bibliophiles and book buyers;from the novice to the astute Antiquarian.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fresh insight into what Lord Clarke meant by "civilization", September 21, 2010
Two intrepid and brilliant women offer us excerpts from their diaries and letters, written during the years 1947-1957 when they traveled each year to Europe to buy stock for their fledgling bookselling business. Through their frist-hand reports, we see war-ruined Europe--and its surviving sellers of rare books--slowly recovering a civilization that the Nazis had tried to destroy. The authors invented the very effective device of placing a retrospective paragraph after every few excerpts. Each "Retrospect" fills in the background of what was happening, and adds the authors' perspective on it all from many years later. This is first-rate autobiographical writing. As their detective work takes the firm of Rostenberg and Stern to eccentric bookshops, where they root out old and rare, often obscure, but very important books, we find ourselves with them in the company of Civilization.
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad
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