Book Row : an anecdotal and pictorial history of the antiquarian book trade

by Marvin Mondlin

Paper Book, 2004

Status

Available

Publication

New York : [Berkeley, Calif.] : Carroll & Graf Publishers ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2004.

Description

The American Story of the Bookstores on Fourth Avenue from the 1890s to the 1960s New York City has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue bracketed by Union Square and Astor Place. There, for nearly eight decades from the 1890s to the 1960s, thrived the New York Booksellers' Row, or Book Row. This richly anecdotal memoir features historical photographs and the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as a book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes (or sixteen miles of books) in twelve miles of space. It's a story cast with characters as legendary and colorful as the horse-betting, poker-playing, go-getter of a book dealer George D. Smith; the irascible Russian-born book hunter Peter Stammer; the visionary Theodore C. Schulte; Lou Cohen, founder of the still-surviving Argosy Book Store; and gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his formidably shrewd wife, Jenny. Book Row remembers places that all lovers of books should never forget, like Biblo & Tamen, the shop that defied book-banning laws; the Green Book Shop, favored by John Dickson Carr; Ellenor Lowenstein's world-renowned gastronomical Corner Book Shop (which was not on a corner); and the Abbey Bookshop, the last of the Fourth Avenue bookstores to close its doors. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, and television are many of the reasons for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens of the people who bought, sold, collected, and breathed in its rare, bibliodiferous air, it lives again.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member delphica
(#48 in the 2007 book challenge)

This is a great read for people who are overly into books. It is page after page of descriptions of bookstores formerly located in New York City's 4th Avenue book sellers' district. It is very enthusiastic, the authors are excited about every bookstore and what kinds
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of books they sold. It has this "... and one time, at band camp...." vibe, it's like "And then there was this bookstore, and it was really good, and then there was this other bookstore, and that was very jolly indeed, and then this other bookstore ..." Again for book lovers, it will also make you drool when the authors dig up price lists from the early 20th century. Other than that, though, if you don't have a special (and frankly, a little greedy) love of books, this doesn't have any sort of hook that will spark an interest.

Grade: B+, I feel like more could have been done to show some sort of bigger picture.

Recommended: In addition to fans of books and antique books and used book stores, I think people who are into the history of New York City would also find a lot to enjoy here.
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LibraryThing member Aetatis
Good book for those of us that enjoy reading about the "good ole days" when booksellers sold new, used and rare books. Excellent for the collecting "books about books" person.
LibraryThing member Crypto-Willobie
Full of information but not very well organized. Nice bit on I R Brussel as book scout etc. (pp, 222-229). Brussel was James Branch Cabell's third bibliographer (1932) and named his son (now a successful artist) 'Cabell Brussel'. There's even a brief anecdote (p.224) about Brussel selling a protege
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specifically the second printing of Cabell's Jurgen, and yet Cabell's name does not appear in the index.
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