With the holidays on the horizon, we thought it would be a good time to talk about gift giving. A rare or secondhand book can make a great gift—if it’s chosen thoughtfully (otherwise you run the risk of seeming like you’ve wrapped a random volume from your own shelves). Before you start shopping, it helps to get clear on what you’d like to give: think about your budget, the recipient’s interests, and what they might already have in their collection. It’s also good to start early; a little extra time can make all the difference when it comes to tracking down that perfect item—possibly with a little help from your neighborhood bookseller. Of course, every book is a gift, it’s just that some are gifts for a person you love, while others are better suited to give to an acquaintance (or an enemy). Learn how to brighten their spirits and shelves on this generous new #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #221 - The Toughest to Shed
It’s a common enough predicament that entire self-help books have been written about it: being emotionally terrorized by a piece of household clutter. The hardest items to part with aren’t usually the ones that we love the most, but those that elicit a sticky cocktail of guilt, sentimentality, and superstition: the photographs that feel painful to look at, the once-favorite garment that no longer fits your body or your lifestyle (but what if…!).
In this episode, we’ll talk about the kinds of books that feel straight-up evil to sell, like gifts (especially from the author, with an incriminating personal inscription), things that were cherished by a departed friend or family member, and religious texts. We don’t have too many solutions for this. Even Ken, who gets rid of books for a living, has resorted to the classic strategy of “placing them in the basement and waiting for them to become someone else’s problem” when it comes to certain volumes. Join us for a look at persistent possessions and inadvertent collections on this week’s #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #220 - Books About Computers
Want to feel old? People are collecting vintage books about computers. These futuristic-feeling technologies have become such an ubiquitous part of our daily lives that it can feel counterintuitive to step back and take a look at their history, but there’s a growing interest in computer science classics that date back to the 1940s and ‘50s. In this episode, we’ll talk about books like Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines; Giant Brains, or Machines That Think; and The Age of Intelligent Machines, as well as some science fiction novels that turned out to be uncannily prescient about the internet age. Log on and join us in cyberspace for this organically intelligent new #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #219 - Car Catalogs
Today we’re taking a look at the golden age of the American automobile, via a collection of car catalogs from the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Full of slick illustrations and arty photographs (it was a great time for advertising, too), these catalogs recall a period of post-war prosperity, space race-inspired modernist design, and lax to nonexistent safety regulations. We’ll discuss which iconic mid-century models we long to drive the most—and delve into the pressing question of why new cars are so big and bland looking these days. Turn up the radio, buckle your seatbelt (if you have one), and join us on a nostalgic joyride through consumer history in this fast and curious #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #218 - Robert Frost Inscriptions
In this episode we’re talking about some recent finds that have a lot to tell us about the rare book business. We got a call about some early Robert Frost editions, which are nice but overall more people are selling items like this than buying them these days. The volumes are signed by the author, which is good but not especially rare: Frost was a generous, gregarious person, happy to sign copies of his books for friends, students, and fans. Along with the signatures he wrote out entire stanzas of poems that would be published in later collections, which is great: we have a winner!
Listen to learn more about the kinds of inscriptions that collectors value most, and, if there’s a podcast topic that you’d find valuable, feel free to reach out to us at info@brattlebookshop.com.