09/29/2015
Gauguin's Model
by Greg Gibson
Today's entry has to do with the way Tahiti looked to Gauguin, but it is also about colleagues, and buying things, and about surprises – about whether or not they can be surprises if we expect them.
Greg Gibson
News, gossip, recent adventures and acquisitions, and deep thinking about the antiquarian book trade.
Articles by Greg Gibson
05/14/2015
Auction Houses vs. Dealers
by Greg Gibson
Not everyone agrees with Greg Gibson's rant against auction houses.
03/30/2015
What Could be More Fun?
by Greg Gibson
What could be more fun than spending two days pouring over old magazines, pamphlets, prints, letters, diaries, photos, advertising, account books, political fliers and broadsides – to name only a few?
04/07/2015
That's Why I Love My Job...
by Greg Gibson
There's a lot at stake in New York this week. Greg Gibson gets ready for "the show," the New York Antiquarian Book Fair...
03/20/2015
Carried Away
by Greg Gibson
Greg Gibson gets carried away by a cache of 19th Century sea charts...
03/10/2015
Frozen: Washington Antiquarian Book Fair
by Greg Gibson
A word about Beth Campbell and the Washington Antiquarian Book Fair, if you will indulge me...
02/24/2015
Fred Rosselt Injured in House Fire
by Greg Gibson
One of my favorite dealers in Nyack is Fred Rosselot, a lovely guy with a sharp mind and a sharper eye for books - with which he filled his house.
01/07/2015
Used Books of the Future
by Greg Gibson
Some books fade into obscurity or, as author Greg Gibson prefers to put it, they turn into "Used Books of the Future."
10/23/2014
Book Show Wars
by Greg Gibson
Is there room for three antiquarian book fairs on the same weekend in New York City? We'll soon find out. The New York Book Fair season of 2015 promises to be one of the most interesting in a quite some time.
09/22/2014
Marvin's Daughter
by Greg Gibson
I am here to tell you, friends, that Greenpoint has unfrozen. Now it teems with energy and diversity in that curious kind of vertical integration that characterizes recently colonized neighborhoods like the Lower East Side. Junkies and homeless people are still there, but they exist side by side with Euro babes walking teeny dogs, trendy hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and jogger moms pushing three wheeled carriages that cost more than my used Toyota. And those mind-bendingly spectacular views of The City! Where were they in the 1980s?
08/29/2014
The Wife and Me
by Greg Gibson
In his memoir, The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter my idol, Charlie Everitt, refers to his wife as “Mrs. Everitt.” I like the old fashioned formality of that address. Same with Ernest Wessen, the great Midwestern Americanist and author of the legendary series of catalogs called Midland Notes: “Mrs. Wessen and I were returning from a visit to the folks in Maine...” etc.
08/04/2014
A Little History
by Greg Gibson
I'm writing from the magnificent pile of stone and anguish known as Chapter 11 Books, situated between a Jiffy Lube and a drive-thru mortuary, and patronized primarily by people who'll have to come back when they've got more time. At the moment I'm wondering how one retires from a trade that most people take up after they retire. No answers are forthcoming. It's beginning to look as if I'll die with my books on.
07/25/2014
The Novel I Never Wrote
by Greg Gibson
In 1829 William Low of Salem was sent to Canton to manage the affairs of Russell & Co. the great American China Trade firm. He brought his wife along and, to keep her company, his twenty-year-old niece, Harriett Low. Happily for posterity, Harriett kept a detailed diary of her years in China. The Low household was a center of social life for American traders in Canton, and Harriett saw, and wrote about, everyone of importance in that group.
10/18/2016
A Boy & His Book: Moby Dick
by Greg Gibson
ABAA-member Greg Gibson recalls his first encounter with what would become his favorite book, Moby Dick.
