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Meet "The Reader," A Drama In Lithography
By Stephen J. GertzTOBIAS, Abraham Joel (1913-1996). The Reader. New York: Works Progress Administration, 1935-43. Lithograph. Image size (21 1/4 x 15 3/4 in; 54 x 40 cm). .Painter, lithographer,...
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Read This House!
By Stephen J. GertzAn anonymous author’s novel written on the wallsof an abandoned house in Chongqing, China.The writing's on the wall: Amazon won't be selling this book. Yet perhaps the innovative new...
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Richard M. Nixon, Thespian Interpreter Of Ayn Rand
By Stephen J. GertzRonald Reagan was not the only President of the United States who was an actor before entering politics.On the evening of October 20, 1938, Richard M. Nixon, a year after being...
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A Stunning Rare Illuminated Book Of Hours, $13,583 Per Hour
By Stephen J. GertzShepherds' Proclamation.On May 21 2012, Ketterer Kunst Auktions - Hamburg is offering the De Gros-Carondelet Book of Hours. It is estimated to sell for €299,000...
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Tennessee Williams' Sweet Sacred Ibis Of Youth
By Stephen J. GertzCover by C.C. Senf."Hushed were the streets of many peopled Thebes. Those few who passed through them moved with the shadowy fleetness of bats near dawn, and bent their faces from...
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How To Dance The Tarantella, In Scarce Lithographs (Cue The Godfather Theme)
By Stephen J. GertzPoor "Frankie Five Angels" Pentangeli. He schleps all the way from New York to the Corleone estate in Nevada for little Anthony's Communion celebration and is offered a "can o'...
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Revisiting The Godfather, The Novel
By Stephen J. GertzThere are strong similarities between Michael Corleone and Alexander Portnoy. Neither of them, for instance, wishes to enter his father's line of work. Each of them falls for a White...
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Hey Kids, Viva La Revolucion With Fidel And Che!
By Stephen J. GertzFront wrapper.Madres y Padres! Los hijos falling asleep during El Líder's interminable orations? Are they missing out on the detailed history of the glorious revolucion? Is the...
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Slightly Nuts - But Not Crazy: Artist Henry Alken Lampoons Art
By Stephen J. GertzPlate 5. All Effect—The Subject far from good, but RichThe terminology of art can be as confounding as that of rare books and bibliography. That arcane aspect of the book world was...
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Jonathan Swift On Women Who Fart (Or Don't)
Today's guest blogger is Stinky the Brontosaurus, recently cloned from an errant strand of DNA recovered from a bone fossil. "Born" with the ability to communicate in a manner unknown during the...
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Charles Bukowski, Artist
By Stephen J. GertzFrom: All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966).In 1966, after enduring a hemorrhoid operation, Charles Bukowski, America's poet laureate of the depths, published a commemorative...
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The Rarest, Most Desirable Book By John Lennon Comes To Auction
By Stephen J. Gertz"We're all in a bag, you know?...I was in a pop bag, going round and round, in my little clique. And she was in her little avant-garde clique, going round and round. So we just came...
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Rare Wizard Of Oz Movable Book Pops-Up In Marketplace
By Stephen J. GertzA scarce, complete, first edition, first state copy of The Wizard of Oz Waddle Book (1934) - one of the rarest of all movable books - has come into the marketplace. Inside rear...
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A Splendid $200,000 Album of Early 19th Century Chinese Export Watercolors
By Stephen J. GertzA remarkable early to mid-nineteenth century Chinese album, containing 141 full-page watercolors of exceptional quality, journeyed from the Celestial Kingdom to the library of a...
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Knorr Shows Sea Shells By The Sea Shore
By Stephen J. GertzIn Nuremberg, 1757 through 1772, Georg Wolfgang Knorr (1705-1761), an engraver of great skill who, through self-study, learned a great deal about art and the natural sciences,...
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Europe's Favorite Nineteenth Century Turkish Delight
By Stephen J. GertzHarem scene.In 1842, Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882), from a noble and wealthy Maltese family and a graduate of the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, packed up his paints and brushes and...
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The 1773 Committee For Tarring and Feathering Invites You To A Tea Party
By Stephen J. GertzOn November 27, 1773, Philadelphia's Committee For Tarring and Feathering issued a playful yet very stern warning to a British mercantile ship captain that his arrival in the city's...
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Novelist Richard Brautigan's Unrecorded One Day Marriage Certificate Surfaces
By Stephen J. GertzIf you were an American Boomer breathing during the 'Sixites and a part of or a close observer of the Counterculture you likely read Trout Fishing in America, the novella by Richard...
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Welcome To Marriage Island, The Isle of Connubial Blitz (1765)
by Stephen J. GertzWelcome Isola del Maritaggio (Marriage Island), the Too-Much-Reality TV show! I'm your host, Al Fresco, sitting in for Silvio Berlusconi who is on special assignation. Each week...
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Three Shamelessly Exhibitionist Bindings And A Voyeur
By Stephen J. GertzExhibition binding by Zaehnsdorf, c. 1900.Three gorgeous bindings recently laid themselves upon my desk. Each an exhibitionist - and justifiably so - they shamelessly displayed...
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