The Booksellers

The number of films which feature rare book trading you could probably count on your fingers. One of the few is "The Ninth Gate" (loosely based on "Club Dumas" by Perez-Reverte) with Johnny Depp, an antiquarian book scout who's on the sleazier end of the spectrum. (He uses the old "high ball/low ball trick" to acquire an important antiquarian edition of "Don Quixote" printed in 1780.) Another is "84 Charing Cross Road". A few rare and antiquarian booksellers appear at the beginning of a few fantasy films, such "The Neverending Story", often as rather cantankerous older eccentrics in tweed jackets and droopy plaid bow-ties. (I wish the plaid bow-tie would be put out of its misery.)

"The Booksellers" offers a more nuanced perspective featuring those trading in antiquarian, rare and collectible books. Most of the booksellers given airtime have been in the trade a long time but there are a fair number of relatively young newcomers who are also given screen-time. (The age of 40 is regarded as "young" in the trade.) It also chronicles a bit about the history of collectible and antiquarian book trading and even a segment about the dynamics of auctions. (Often films having an auction scene are nearly exclusively fine art.)

I am an antiquarian book collector myself (mostly books printed circa 1500 to 1700), and I've bought a few items from some of the booksellers profiled. It is interesting that during the 20th century, there were dozens and in some cases 100's of used bookstores in urban areas. Books have been an important part of many people's lives. And yet for elusive reasons, the world of books gets sparse media attention, be it films, television, and even books about books. Book collectors I think tend to be under the radar. Until I joined the Book Club of California, I knew almost no book collectors.

Several of the people highlighted: Rebecca Romney, whose sort of the closest equivalent to a movie star in the antiquarian book world (if there is such a thing), in large part because of her book appraisals on the History Channel's "Pawn Stars"; David Bergman, a pretty down-to-earth mid-level NY antiquarian bookseller who specializes in large antiquarian with prints and engravings; and Henry Wessells of James Cummins, bookseller. Nicholas Lowry, who many PBS viewers will recognize because of his appraisals of vintage posters on the Antiques Roadshow US, offers compelling commentary on the history of book collecting. So does Stephen Massey, also a regular on the Antiques Roadshow US. One of Massey's claims to fame was being the auctioneer at the sale of Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. Winning bidder: Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. Massey also authenticated a copy of the Shakespeare First Folio which had been stolen from Durham University, Britain, in the 1990's.

One thing I appreciated about the documentary is a few book collectors and curators were interviewed. Often, material concerning the antiquarian and collectible book trade focuses only on the sellers. There wouldn't be sellers if there were no collectors! Michael Zinman, collector of early-printed books in America receives ample treatment and several booksellers comment on his focus. I also enjoyed Kevin Young, poet and curator, talking about material written and published during the Harlem Renaissance.

Two recurring themes of the documentary: that the antiquarian book traders are aging (both among dealers and collectors) and how the internet has in a lot of ways changed in some cases stifled old business models. From a collector's perspective, the internet has made collecting much easier. Simultaneously I can see how it radically forced booksellers to alter a modus operandi which worked for nearly two centuries. A first edition from 1975 which might have easily sold for $250 in 1995, if only because it wasn't easy to find a copy locally, is now competing with copies on the internet which might be priced at say $50.

I think the antiquarian booksellers need to find new and exciting ways to tap potential customers and future collectors. I'm actually a renaissance faire participant and I exhibit books printed in the 1500s to early 1600's. It's interesting how few people know that these books are bought and sold routinely. At renaissance faire, when exhibiting a Geneva Bible from 1589, it is not uncommon for people to say "How did you get this?" The answer: "I bought it from a bookseller!"

Beautifully shot, a lively jazz soundtrack and some interesting characters and good interviews.

Fran Lebowitz for me was the standout, and I could listen to her all day.

For me where it falls down is that it has no form of a narrative. A good story has a beginning middle and end. It takes you on an emotional journey. This felt more like a clip show.

Topics are brought up throughout, giving a feeling of a repetition rather than a story being crafted.

Maybe I should embrace the eclectic story, to match the eclectic people. But for me it felt like it needed a message of some sort to sew this all together.

Greetings again from the darkness. One might think that the only thing less interesting than watching someone read a book would be watching them talk about a book they are buying and not intending to read. Director-Editor-Producer DW Young somehow manages to make the topic quite engaging ... due in no small part to the stream of bibliophiles and antiquarian booksellers we meet. The philosophy of the film is best expressed through one of the many spot-on quotes sprinkled throughout: "Books are a way of being fully human."

It's either cheating or hedging one's bet when a director secures an interview with the eloquent Fran Lebowitz for a documentary. If the documentary is about books, well that's even better. She perfectly describes the joy in "crawling around" bookstores in search of just the right one. She recalls the days when bookstores lined 4th Avenue, in what had been labeled "Book Row." These days, only one remains - The Strand, which was founded in 1929. We learn that in the 1950's, there were 358 bookstores in New York City, and now your search for a good read is limited to 79. The oldest remaining NYC bookstore is the stunning Argosy on E. 59th, and it's being operated by the three daughters of Louis Cohen who opened the store in 1925. Ownership of the building is key to the bookstore remaining open for nearly 100 years.

Director Young takes us inside the beautiful and historic Park Avenue Armory for the NYC Antiquarian Book Fair. It's here where we see a Fidel Castro doll (I guess everything is collectable!), and more importantly get a feel for how the rare book trade works. These collectors are obsessive about their books and compulsive in their mission of the next rare discovery. We see warehouses, apartments, offices, and stores jam packed with books, and to cap it off, we hear from the folks who have made this their passion. Not just bibliophiles like Ms. Lebowitz, Gay Talese, and Susan Orlean, but the boots-on-the-ground booksellers and collectors. There is even a segment on Martin Stone, the legendary book scout or bookrunner, who was also a rock 'n roll guitarist.

"The internet killed the hunt." A perfect example is given on how the world wide web changed book selling and collecting. In the old days, a collector could spend years assembling a full collection of Edith Wharton books, whereas today, a credit card and an afternoon on the internet would yield the same results. This is 'buying' contrasted with 'collecting', and the old school collectors have either adjusted or are struggling. Even auctions have changed, and Bill Gates' purchasing Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Codex Leicester" via phone ... for $28 million ... is an example.

Movies about book dealers are discussed, including THE BIG SLEEP and UNFAITHFUL, and we see a clip of Larry McMurtry's speech championing book reading and bookstores. It should also be noted that Mr. McMurtry is a long time book seller and collector from Archer City, Texas. One of the industry's new celebrities is the ultra-charming Rebecca Romney, who became famous for her stints on TV's "Pawn Stars" as the resident book expert. Ms. Romney is leading the new wave of collectors, and her passion as a glass-half-full type is contagious.

Author Maurice Sendak said "There's so much more to a book than reading." Here, we learn about the importance of book jackets and special bindings, and how these rare books are actually historical evidence ... artifacts of culture. This explains why 'book burning' has the history it does as both symbolizing and physically accomplishing the destruction of certain segments of society. We also learn those in this business don't think highly of Kindle. The words may be the same, but the experience certainly isn't.

The film is billed as a behind-the-scenes look at the New York rare book world, but it spends more time exploring the folks who make-up this business/industry/lifestyle. Their passion, and one might even call it a fetish, is quite interesting. The argument can be made that their work is quite important in preserving history. Smooth jazz accompanies the story, and it's only fitting that I learned a new word: Incunabulum, which is an early printed book. These collectors express concern about their legacy, so hopefully the film will spur even more people to understand the historical relevance of books in our cultured society.

The Booksellers (2019) -

This documentary was that sort of crass that you get from America sometimes, full of some very eccentric people, not all from the U. S. However the content still had an appeal about it by the time I made it to the end.

Some of the "Booksellers" looked incredibly familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me work out where I might have known them from, because I've never seen anything else about these people, which lead me to wonder if they might be actors, although IMDB did not back up that theory of course. Perhaps they just have those faces.

The film itself made me wish that the charming old book shops, that so many of the people described, still existed. I remembered the second hand book shop that I used to frequent, which was never going to really succeed, because the guy that owned and ran it spent all day reading instead of stacking or shelving the books in to any sort of orderly system, but it was a place to find treasures and I pray that places like it (Maybe slightly better) might come back in to fashion again.

What I liked about this documentary was that it covered diversity within writing, without screaming about it too much. There were references to authors of colour and of course those within the LGBTQ+ community, because books were a large part of bringing acceptance about and another way to access information on other cultures through stories and so on.

What worried me by the end though was the question of what happens if the internet crashes and all is lost? I don't care how many back ups the world thinks it has, we must keep books alive. Even if they're all just kept in a damp proof and fireproof building to be referred to at special request, because knowledge is so important and so is the art of writing fiction or otherwise. You wouldn't scan Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' in to a computer and then consider it less important to keep the originals, because it's saved forever in the electric ether!

As a writer, I feel that the internet and access to the written word that way is very important, but I will always put my books out as hard copies, because I believe that there is still something important about having that book to hold and treasure if you do find that you enjoy it. You never know when Netflix will take your favourite show off of their listings and you never know when Kindle might decide that a book isn't worth keeping anymore either. If you have a real copy then you can never be without your favourite adventures or pages of knowledge.

So, overall it was interesting to see how these people worked within the industry, although for some of them it was more about the possession of a book with monetary value and less about the beauty of the words or pictures inside, but in general this film just stirred feelings within me around the creation, publication and continuation of the printed word.

600.17/1000.

What Truman Capote did for non-fiction - imposing a narrative tone and form on works that had mostly been a recording of facts - films like "Hoop Dreams," or "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" or "Grizzly Man," did for documentaries; i.e., they raised the bar and imposed a narrative structure on the material. Unfortunately, as fascinating as the world of rare book dealers may be, The Booksellers seemed disorganized, often confusing without any real narrative thread. While people may recognize Gay Talese or Fran Leibowitz, people are often interviewed with no caption telling us who they are, what their job title is, and these people were, for the most part, not very interesting. The profession might attract unusual people, but the film doesn't have the "Herzog" - that skill at highlighting those idiosyncrasies in the subjects that make a documentary especially watchable.