In 1999, Cara Schlesinger, founder of Faenwyl Bindery, took her first bookbinding workshop and fell in love with the craft of bookbinding. Over two decades later, Schlesinger has a spacious Brooklyn workspace as a full-time independent bookbinder and conservation specialist. One of the most memorable early moments in Schlesinger's book-repairing journey was repairing her family's treasured Charles Dickens books; her great-grandfather passed them on to her grandmother. "I thin

Peter Stern specializes in selling and collecting old and rare fiction books from the nineteenth and twentieth century. He has a few thousand books at the moment, and in his collection aside from fiction, are poems and photographs and much more. For the last twenty-five years he’s been running his own online store and office, open by appointment. Stern attended a school in Boston during his younger years, and it was there that he first worked for a bookseller in 1972 for a l

Stepping into Olson Rare Books is the closest reality people have to step into a time machine. What makes this inventory of books stand out is that the material is from the hand press period, before the Industrial Revolution. According to Olson, this period begins with Gutenberg (ca. 1455) and ended around 1830. “ I'm interested in early printing, the process, the materials, the techniques, and the distribution economics,” Olson shared why he chose to work in this unique nich

After years of experience and work with his passions, Stefan Baer came to North America for new opportunities. He spent the majority of his younger years in Switzerland where he grew up, the same place where he held an apprenticeship and acted as a manager for a nearby bookstore. He loved being surrounded by stories and literature, but everything he did dealt with new books, things that were popular at the moment. When he finally came to America and started deciding what it w

What are the 100 Best Books Written or Published in Massachusetts since the Seventeenth Century: a panel discussion, will run from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. at Rare Books Boston. The panel will be moderated by publisher and letterpress printer David Godine, with panelists John Buchtel, Ph.D., Curator of Rare Books and Head of Special Collections at the Boston Athenaeum, Carol Bundy, a historian and biographer, Ken Gloss, owner of Boston’s Brattle Bookshop; of Boston, Matt Tannenbaum,

“We buy and sell evidence.” New York-based Ellipsis Rare Books owner, Andrew Lenoir, perfectly encapsulates the importance of rare booksellers. Lenoir recounts how being in the book trade strengthened his knowledge and appreciation of history. Recently, in Pennsylvania, he came across pamphlets on bananas from the 30s. An untrained eye would pass off the pamphlets as just information about bananas. Fortunately, Lenoir has an Olympic-trained eye and knew the historical signif

An endeavor that started with an inexpensive aged Mark Twain book at an antique store has transformed into a business with a diverse inventory of collectible books and ephemera. That is the journey of a small, family-owned business, Walnut Street Paper, a bookstore in Kutztown, PA, co-owned by Alexis and George Sirrakos. Walnut Street Paper has an array of book selections that include Americana, 20th-century children’s literature, pop culture, poetry, and natural history. "We