Three cheers for Edmonton city council.  According to the Edmonton Journal, media philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s childhood home will be preserved after city councillors voted to give the Edmonton Arts Council $75,000 to help buy the site.

The arts organization plans to use most of the main floor of the home, at 11342 64th St., for a library, and public displays about McLuhan, whose family moved in when he was one year old,  in 1912. The second floor, basement and garage will be turned into offices, suites for visiting artists and space for a writer in residence.

Although McLuhan once dubbed the ‘Dr. Spock of Pop Culture’ worked most of his life at the University of Toronto, he often returned to Edmonton, where he was born. He died in 1980. An international conference  was held in Edmonton last year to mark the centennial of his birth.

Saturday, May 19th & Sunday, May 20th, Old Editions & Austin’s Books will be sponsoring a Book Fair at the Buffalo Convention Center. Over sixty-five dealers from the United States and Canada will be present for this two-day event, all sporting their rarest & most unique items. If you are interested in collecting, are a collector, or just want to check out an array of beautiful items from years past, this is the show for you! Admission is $8.00 and you can find out more about it by calling Old Editions at 716-842-1734

Henry Southeran
In a recent interview with Canadian poet Tim Bowling on his book In the Suicide’s Library, the two of us mused about the high incidence of coincidence that seems to occur around the collecting of books. To wit:

Back in February Swann Auction Galleries held a Private Press & Illustrated Books auction. It was filled with the most beautiful works of printing, illustration and typography from celebrated American and European presses including Allen, Ashendene, Cranach, Doves, Eragny, Golden Cockerel, Grabhorn, Gregynog, Janus, Kelmscott, Nonesuch…you get the picture. Rebecca Weiss sent me a copy of the catalogue. I looked through it filled with lust, particularly for the Ashenedene Bibliography, a book I covet but at this point can’t quite justify buying; it went for a painfully reasonable price.

Several weeks later I noticed that Mike’s Library was holding a half price sale. On the way back from a trip to New York I stopped in at Wilkes Barre to meet Mike, and pick up my copy of A Miscellany Of Type : Compiled at Whittington.

Turns out Mike knew all about the Swann sale. He knew the person whose books they were. In fact, my copy of Miscellany carried the man’s bookplate. Norman J. Sondheim was his name.

Here is a slideshow we’ve put together to accompany this video, which outlines our new Literary Tourist Destination Marketing Program.

Please email me here for more information.

Over the past year or two I’ve been conducting a series of Biblio File interviews with or on various important Canadian book designers. The focus has been on the fifties and sixties when design started to be recognized as worthy of effort, and achievement started to be celebrated. Carl Dair, Frank Newfeld, Allan Fleming, Bill Toye, Peter Dorn, Will Rueter, Robert Reid, Tak Tanabe, Stan Bevington, and moving into the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond, Tim Inkster, Andrew Steeves, C.S. Richardson, Peter Cocking…Betty Sutherland’s work with Contact Press during the 1950s has gone relatively unheralded; I plan to help rectify this. She clearly belongs in the pantheon.

All of these great talents have contributed to the evolution of book design in Canada.

So has someone else whose name should be added to the list. A relative newcomer. David Drummond. He has quietly been winning AIGA Design awards like the Montreal Canadiens used to win Stanley Cups. Here are just some

of his

show-stopping

cover

designs.

Their strength I think

lies in the playful, literal, enjambed way

in which they toy with images, just as the good author can startle and arrest by dint of the words he chooses to play with and place. 

This boke is one thing

The halter another;

He that stealeth the one

May be sure of the other.

Literary Agent Kelly Sonnack has put up a Facebook page for an annual event she launched last year to help ‘Save Bookstores’. This is the poster that one of her clients, children’s book illustrator Sam Zappardi, designed for this year’s campaign. As Sam puts it: “All you have to do is head into town on June 16th and pick up a few books from somewhere other than the internet. There’s nowt like a good browse, after all.”

Before you hit the road on that book scouting holiday, follow this advice from Old Scrolls Blog:

1. Do some research ahead of time via the internet and sites like Literary Tourist, ABAA and IOBA, to learn what book stores are available to visit in each state.

2.  Two to four book shops a day is about the limit if you want to really search their inventory, get to talk with the owners, and learn more about the area.  Most book shops don’t open until 10 a.m. or later, and often close by 4:30 or 5pm, so there is limited time each day for the hunt.

3.  It’s very helpful to have a state-wide or regional guide to book stores in the area you are visiting.  These can usually be obtained at the first antiquarian book shop you visit upon entering new territory, or you can request the information ahead of time by searching the internet for antiquarian book associations.

4.  Introduce yourself as a collector or bookseller when you enter the store.  Take time to talk with the staff and proprietors — you will learn much and they can be very helpful to you.

5.  Be flexible.  We have a general plan in mind when we leave on a book scouting trip, but we find it pays to be open to suggestions, which you will surely receive if you talk with people along the way.  We have found books and book shops we never would have located just by being friendly, open and willing to get a little lost!

Here from the Guardian are a series of great British literary walks:

For another, less chatty look, go here.