| Description |
xi, 182 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references. |
| Summary |
"A wry, unvarnished chronicle of a career in the rare book trade during its last Golden Age. In The Last Bookseller, Gary Goodman describes his sometimes desperate, sometimes hilarious career as a used and rare book dealer in Minnesota. As both a memoir and a history of booksellers and book scouts, criminals and collectors, The Last Bookseller offers an ultimately poignant account of the used and rare book business during its final Golden Age."-- Provided by publisher. |
|
"Here we meet the infamous St. Paul Book Bandit, Stephen Blumberg, who stole 24,000 rare books worth more than fifty million dollars; John Jenkins, the Texas rare book dealer who (probably) was murdered while standing in the middle of the Colorado River; and the eccentric Melvin McCosh, who filled his dilapidated Lake Minnetonka mansion with half a million books. In 1990, with a couple of partners, Goodman opened St. Croix Antiquarian Books in Stillwater, one of the Twin Cities region's most venerable bookshops until it closed in 2017. This store became so successful and inspired so many other booksellers to move to town that Richard Booth, founder of the "book town" movement in Hay-on-Wye in Wales, declared Stillwater the First Book Town in North America. The internet changed the book business forever, and Goodman details how, after 2000, the internet made stores like his obsolete. In the 1990s, the Twin Cities had nearly fifty secondhand bookshops; today, there are fewer than ten. As both a memoir and a history of booksellers and book scouts, criminals and collectors, The Last Bookseller offers an ultimately poignant account of the used and rare book business during its final Golden Age." Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Chapter 1. Four Thousand: Bad Books -- Chapter 2. Book Scouts and: Dead Booksellers -- Chapter 3. Billions: of Books -- Chapter 4. All for the: Want of a Book -- Chapter 5. A Book Fair: with the General -- Chapter 6. Bookman's Alley: and McCosh's Mansion -- Chapter 7. Beating: the Bushes -- Chapter 8. A Bookstore: in Stillwater -- Chapter 9. Hoarding: and Horse Barns -- Chapter 10. Travels to: Book Towns -- Chapter 11. The King: of Hay-on-Wye -- Chapter 12. The Mormon: and the Map Thief -- Chapter 13. North America's: First Book Town -- Chapter 14. The Book: Collectors -- Chapter 15. The Stillwater: Booktown Times -- Chapter 16. The Beginning: of the End -- Chapter 17. Survival: Tactics -- Epilogue -- Appendix: Travel Journal -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- About the Author. |
| Subject |
Goodman, Gary, 1951-
|
|
Antiquarian booksellers -- Minnesota -- Biography.
|
|
Booksellers and bookselling.
|
|
Antiquarian booksellers. (OCoLC)fst00810677
|
|
Minnesota. (OCoLC)fst01204560
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
|
|
Autobiographies.
|
| Other Form: |
Online version: Goodman, Gary, 1951- Last bookseller Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2021] 9781452966915 (DLC) 2021025899 |
| ISBN |
9781517912574 hardcover ; acid-free paper |
|
1517912571 hardcover ; acid-free paper |
|
9781452966915 electronic book |
|
