There’s one more day of the 29th Annual Antiquarian Book Fair at the St. Petersburg Coliseum (floridabooksellers.com/bookfair.html). It’s only $6 for the day–$5 if you pick up one of the many coupons around town. If you enjoy books, especially books from your childhood or books you remember seeing in your grandparent’s home libraries, this is an event for you.
Aside from the books, themselves, two things that stood out for me were the sounds of many different regional accents and the generally hushed quality of the entire Coliseum.
The accents were definitely there since there were bookdealers from Alabama, California, Connecticut, DC, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and–of course–Florida!
I slowly walked the entire Coliseum several times, just enjoying the libraryesque atmosphere and listening to voices. It was so musical. All those accents. I was especially fond of the New Englander inflections. Don’t hear those much down here.
From the Tampa Bay area alone, there were a large number of booksellers–I really didn’t realize we had this many, locally:
- Art Around the Clock,
- Best Books & Rich Treasures,
- A Book Legacy,
- Books To The Ceiling,
- Camelot Books,
- Arthur H. Minters Bookseller,
- Miracle Estate Sales,
- Vivian Moore Bookseller,
- Old Tampa Book Company,
- Griffin Bookbinding, and Griffon’s Medieval Manuscripts, Inc., both of which were part of the Inkwatu post, Wilson’s Bookworld, and of course
- Lighthouse Books, covered in Inkwatu’s Lighthouse Books. I’m not sure of Mr. Michael Slicker’s responsibilities with the St. Pete Antiquarian Book Fair, but I suspect he’s very active in the organization.
Check out the entire list of participating booksellers at the webpage given above (floridabooksellers.com/bookfair.html) to find small, independent bookstores near you. Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble are fine and have their purpose, but these people need our support for it is they who find, restore, and preserve the gems that we can buy from them. As you look through the list of dealers, you’ll notice the abbreviation, ABAA. That stands for Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (www.abaa.org).
I don’t seriously expect you to read the following list, but glance through it at all the different types of store specialties represented at this show:
12th to 16th Century Illuminated Manuscripts, 19th & 20th Century English & American Literature, African American, African Diaspora History, Agriculture, American Historical, American Literature, American Revolution, Americana, Americana (South), Lesbian/Gay, Anthropology, Antiquarian Theology, Antique and collectible maps and atlases, Antiques, Appraisals, Architecture and photography, Art and Print Reference, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Art of the South, Art, Autographed books, Autographed Children’s Books, Autographs, Automotive, Aviation, Baseball, Bierce, Big Little Books, Bindings, Biography, Boy & Girl Scouts, Caldecott & Newbery Award Winners, Calligraphy, Canadiana, Cartographic Reference, Catalogues, Chess, Children’s Literature, Children’s Books, Children’s Series, Children’s Illustrated, Church History, Civil War, Civil War & Presidential Autographs & Documents, Classic Fiction, Collectible Paperbacks, Colonial Americas, Cook Books, Counter Culture, Designer Binding, Detective Fiction, Disney and Modern Firsts, Documents & Prints, Early Printed Books, Economics, Engineering, English & American Literature, Ephemera, Exploration & Voyages, Family Bibles Restored, Fantasy and Mysteries, Fine & Leather Bindings, Fine Art Books, Fine Hand Bookbinding, Fine Prints, Firearms, First Editions, Fishing, Florida fiction, Florida History, Florida Non-Fiction, Floridiana, Genealogy, Golf, Graphics, H. L. Mencken, Hemingway, History, Horror, Horse & Dog Sporting, Horticulture, Hunting, Illustrated & Color Plate Books, Judacia, Law, Leather Sets, Literary First Editions, Literature (Modern), Literature in Translation, Literature of the South, Little House Books, Manuscripts, Maps, Maritime History, Mathematics, Medicine, Methodism, Michael Hague, Military History, Miniature Books, Modern Illustrated, Modern Original, Mystery, Native American, Natural History, Natural Science, Nautical, New England History, Out of Print Scholarly, Outlaw, Periodicals on Art, Philosophy, Photographica, Photography, Photo-plays, Poetry, Polar, Pop Ups, Postcards, Press Books, Psychology & Medical, Railroads, Rare & Unusual, Religion, Science Fiction, Science, Sets, Signed & Inscribed Books, Slipcases, Small Press, Southern, Southern Americana, Southern Authors, Southern Fiction, Southern History, Southern Literature, Southern Regional, Sports, Steinbeck, Suspense, Tasha Tudor, Technical, Tennesseana, Tennis, Reformation, Theology, Tolkien, Transportation, Travel and Exploration, Typography, U.S. Coastal History, Visionary, Voyages, Western Americana, Whaling, Women Writers, Yachting, and Zane Grey.
Amazing, isn’t it. My own loves are in there: children’s series (stuff like the Wizard of Oz, The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, Doctor Dolittle, and World War II Flying Ace novels) and ephemera. Ephemera, literally, means “things that transient,” in this context, posters, illustrations, postcards, tickets, sheet music…things that are very much a product of their time. The Inkwatu post, Vintage Sheet Music Covers, has images of some in my collection and Music From Another Era has some from my sister’s collection (that link opens to her own website). The Inkwatu post, Vintage Florida Postcards presents part of the postcard collection of a good friend, Fran Sims.
If you have the chance and this kind of thing interests you, take in the last day of the Book Fair on the 14th. If you have to miss it this year, there’ll be another next year about this time of the year. And…be sure and support your local, independent bookseller throughout the year!
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