Who’s Counting?

continued

Back in the mid-1970s, the antiquarian book trade was experiencing a modest renaissance. Tom and Louie Borders started Charing Cross Book Shop (later State Street Book Shop), Bill Gillmore launched Dawn Treader, and I opened the West Side Book Shop, all within a two-year period.

In July 1976 the American Library Association scheduled its Rare Book Conference in Ann Arbor, and some of us thought it would be a good idea to put on a book fair, invite the librarians, and sell them lots of books. Actually Bob and Ruth Iglehart of Hartfield Books came up with the idea, and I and Tom Nicely of Leaves of Grass Rare Books seconded the motion. We rented a room in the Michigan League for three days and persuaded eleven other Michigan dealers to join us. In anticipation of a collegial event hobnobbing with the rare-book librarians, a wine and cheese reception was planned for the opening night.

The librarians came, drank the wine, ate the cheese, bought few books (if any), and left. We then spent two of the hottest and most humid days of the summer in a room with no air conditioning, staring at each other’s books.

There was no fair in 1977.