Fine Books Blog

Happy Birthday to Scott Brown, purveyor of the Fine Books Blog! Today he marks one small step towards a destination that he knows so very well: antiquity. His lovely blog acts as a companion piece to Fine Books & Collections magazine, a publication that supports and serenades bibliophiles as they rummage through the bookstores of the world. On the crisp, sharply cut pages of Scott's site, you'll find entries about everything from book buying to book borrowing to book selling, not to mention a sizable addendum of book arts and a backstage look at the magazine biz. We particularly enjoyed a recent post about that pointed us to Richard Polt, Paul Collins, and the inimitable Harry Stephen Keeler.  That's definitely one of the pleasures of this blog -- a web of connections that lead, inevitably, to delightful new discoveries. Brown's latest subject is the Collegiate Collectors contest, which is perhaps one of the most truly troubling developments we've ever heard of -- competitive book-buying! Egads! There are actually cash prizes for being the most obsessive scavenger of obscure, out-of-print books. If we'd known this when we were in college, you'd certainly find us sleeping in the park, clutching a well-worn copy of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned in one hand and a small trophy in the other.