31–36 of 36 posts
I am doing some work with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. It's a rare book library with some of the most incredible and beautiful books about esoteric philosophy. I love it. Also know as “The Embassy of the Free Mind” As you walk into the library, there is a big bronze statue of Marisilio Ficino. Ficino was peak Renaissance — he was head of the academy in Florence and hired by the Medici's to tra…
I am doing some work with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. It's a rare book library with some of the most incredible and beautiful books about esoteric philosophy. I love it. Also know as “The Embassy of the Free Mind” As you walk into the library, there is a big bronze statue of Marisilio Ficino. Ficino was peak Renaissance — he was head of the academy in Florence and hired by the Medici's to tra…
I recommend the 1621 book Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. He was a big bibliophile with a huge collection, and also melancholic, so he wrote about melancholy while pulling material from his own reading. The result is a huge book that is figuratively 50% main text and 50% marginalia; if you find a good edition where they are printed as actual marginalia instead of footnotes/endnotes, it gives a completely diff…
I am doing some work with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. It's a rare book library with some of the most incredible and beautiful books about esoteric philosophy. I love it. Also know as “The Embassy of the Free Mind” As you walk into the library, there is a big bronze statue of Marisilio Ficino. Ficino was peak Renaissance — he was head of the academy in Florence and hired by the Medici's to tra…
Can you cast a fireball now?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My big find was a fair-condition copy of Graham Greene’s retracted second novel in a secondhand bookstore in Canada for CDN20. It’s not in collectable condition, by any means. The spine is angled and the dust jacket is missing, but just the opportunity to read this (not that good, to be honest) book and the delight of finding a copy that I could afford were a joy for me.
Do you think it was mispriced then, even given its condition, or did they know exactly what they had? Just wondering if you mean it was a steal, or that the price was right but still rare to find?
I am doing some work with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. It's a rare book library with some of the most incredible and beautiful books about esoteric philosophy. I love it. Also know as “The Embassy of the Free Mind” As you walk into the library, there is a big bronze statue of Marisilio Ficino. Ficino was peak Renaissance — he was head of the academy in Florence and hired by the Medici's to tra…
Can you cast a fireball now?
I give a talk about magic in design actually I should post…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on what you’re collecting but for pre-ISBN books, AbeBooks is the central marketplace for rare books so that’s one place to look up titles but most book collectors specialize, often in a very specific niches like certain authors or topics, usually restricted to a single era. The hard part is tracking editions and verifying that you have a genuine first edition. Collectors depend on bibliographies which are…
A family friend lived his entire life as a bookhound, and the bread-and-butter was not first editions worth thousands, but books for fifty cents that were worth $20. Buy for a half a buck, sell to a bookstore for $5. The key now is being able to handle the non-isbn books because everyone is out there with phone scanners now.