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THE BIBLIO FILE is a podcast about "the book," and an inquiry into the wider world of book culture. Hosted by Nigel Beale it features wide ranging, long-form conversations with authors, poets, book publishers, booksellers, book editors, book collectors, book makers, book scholars, book critics, book designers, book publicists, literary agents and many others inside the book trade and out - from writer to reader.
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The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale
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Book Designer Jerry Kelly on what to do once you've written your Manuscript
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I've long been interested in rhetoric, the techniques of persuasive argument, propaganda; the use of passionate language. It's why I collect publishers' sales and bookseller catalogues, I'm sure! Ever since first laying hands on the bookseller catalogues that Jerry Kelly has, over the years, designed for the likes of Jonathan A. Hill and Glenn Horo…
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Justin Pemberton on how to adapt an 800-page best-seller into a documentary film
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1:06:39
About a month ago I watched a documentary entitled Capital in the 21st Century. It was pretty riveting, describing much of what, and how, I've been thinking over the past few years about the American take-over of Canada, and the belief that the country "developed" largely because the very rich were too lazy, risk-averse and unpatriotic to invest in…
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Scott Ferris on Artist and Book Illustrator Rockwell Kent
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Scott R Ferris, is a researcher, writer and specialist in the art of Rockwell Kent (1882-1971). He has conducted many lectures on Kent and has served as curator for a lot of Kent exhibitions. Here's a thumbnail of Kent culled from what Zoë Samels has written on the U.S. National Gallery website: He attended the Horace Mann School in New York City w…
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Stephen Marche on Writing and Failure and Getting your Balls Hacked Off
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1:05:04
Is failure an inherent part of the writing "enterprise"? Yes, I'd say, this is undoubtedly true. If seen, however, solely as an "exercise" in itself, does this still hold true? I'm not quite so sure. These are the axes along which I tread during my conversation with Stephen Marche about his valuable new book On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Pecul…
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Sasha Tochilovsky on one of the greatest partnerships in magazine history
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Sasha Tochilovsky is a graphic designer, typographer, curator, teacher and head of the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography at the Cooper Union in New York City. We talk here about one of the greatest creative teams in magazine history: author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist Ralph Ginzburg and graphic designer and typographer …
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Andy Hughes on Bob Caro and Book Production at Knopf
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Andy Hughes is Senior Vice President of Production and Design at Knopf Doubleday, and I really wanted to know what he had to say. During a recent conversation with Lizzie Gottlieb about her new documentary film Turn Every Page, listen here, she mentioned that she regretted not being able to include what Andy had had to say about producing Bob Caro'…
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Gerry Butts and John Duffy on How Canada Works
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Last year when John Duffy, a Canadian political strategist and writer, died at the age of 58, I noticed an outpouring of genuine love, and sadness, on Twitter, along with frequent references to his book Fights of our Lives. It was called one the best ever written on Canadian politics. So I picked up a copy. It's filled with dozens of old photograph…
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Michael Geist on the pathetic argument for extending copyright in Canada
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I booked a room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Montreal through Hotwire a couple of days ago. When I arrived at the hotel the receptionist asked me for a $250 deposit for incidentals. Next morning, without my permission (sure, okay, it's likely buried in the small print) they charged my card an additional $200. I subsequently learned that this w…
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Director Lizzie Gottlieb on her documentary Turn Every Page. And Books, Writers, and Editors
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My GP took off on me last year. Landed some big gig in Geneva I think. He's a bright one. Not that I knew him very well. Only met him twice in six years. Anyhow, I went in for my tri-annual (once every three) check-up the other day. The nurse was pleasant. Told me he'd been working in the same clinic for 30 years. Adventurous, I thought. Then a stu…
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Richard Charkin on how you too can set up a successful publishing business
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1:09:25
A perceptive devotee of the podcast told me last week that he thought I was an ignoramus. 'You don't think it takes talent to be a photographer (referring to something said during this conversation with Michael Torosian, maker of fine press photography books, here)?' 'I do think it takes talent,' I responded. 'I just don't know how much. The case h…
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Michael Torosian (Part ll) on How to Interview an Artist for a Book
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Here is Part ll of my conversation with Michael Torosian featuring his soon to be released memoir/bibliography Lumiere Press: Printer Savant and Other Stories (listen to Part l here). This episode gets to the essence of Michael's book writing/publishing practice: the interview. We discuss a list of guidelines Michael has developed based on his expe…
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Michael Torosian on Photography & making Fine Press Photography Books
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1:24:53
Michael Torosian has spent his life taking photographs, interviewing great photographers, and making fine press photography books. He's in the process of making another entitled Lumiere Press, Printer Savant and Other Stories to commemorate the establishment of the Lumiere Press Archive at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto. It's full o…
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John Metcalf on a lifetime of editing and publishing short stories
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John Metcalf is angry that after working in Canada as a "storyteller, editor, novelist, essayist, and critic" for more than fifty years his books still only sell about 500 copies each. Regardless of this, he's made a significant contribution to Canadian literature through his editing, teaching, critiquing, compiling of anthologies, publishing, and …
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Anton Bogomazov on Mark LaFramboise and the role of the Bookstore Book Buyer
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In an email I received several months ago, the owners of the iconic Washington, D.C. based independent bookstore Politics & Prose wrote that Mark LaFramboise, their chief book buyer, had died. “Mark was the best book buyer any independent bookstore could hope for,” Brad Graham and Lissa Muscatine said in their note. "Not only did he know books; he …
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Tom Devlin on the rise of Drawn and Quarterly, and Graphic Novels
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Tom Devlin is a key figure in the world of graphic novels. His career mimics the evolution of the genre. As founder of Highwater Books, a publishing house he set up in the early 2000s, he treated alternative comics audiences in North America to their first book-length exposure to future star cartoonist/authors John Porcellino, Marc Bell, Ron Rege J…
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Shannon DeVito on her role as 'Director of Books' at B & N
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Shannon DeVito is Barnes and Noble's 'Director of Books.' We met via Zoom to discuss the roles and duties associated with this intriguing-sounding position. I discovered that they include co-ordinating the relationship between national and local book-buying teams; 'assortment' work; creating initiatives - including prizes ( e.g. the Discover Prize;…
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Dan Paisner on being the voice of Ivanka, Serena, Whoopi, Denzel and Steve Aoki
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Where does editing leave off and ghostwriting begin? How cool is it to pass yourself off as the writer if you haven't done any of the writing? How much recognition do "collaborators" deserve? Should ghostwriters be completely anonymous? When should they refuse assignments? How does one work with a person whose views are opposed to yours? Where does…
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Valerie Picard on winning Best Children's Publisher at Bologna
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1:03:33
Earlier this year a tiny Quebec-based children's publishing house, Monsieur Ed, won the prize for Best Children’s Publishers of the Year in North America at the Bologna Book Fair. It won, judges said, for being at the forefront of innovation in the creative nature of its editorial choices during the past year. I thought this was a big deal so I con…
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Martha Fleming on Canada's greatest graphic designer
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Allan Fleming (1929 – 1977) was a Canadian graphic designer best known for having created the Canadian National Railway logo, for designing the 1967 book Canada: A Year of the Land and for "revolutionizing" the look of scholarly publishing in North America in the 1970s with his work at University of Toronto Press. In 1953 Allan moved to England to …
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Nora Krug on vigilantly illustrating Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny
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I first became aware of the graphic edition of Timothy Snyder's book On Tyranny during a visit to the National Socialist Documentation Centre museum in Munich about a year ago (revel in the backstory here). I bought and read a copy of the original edition shortly thereafter. It's a powerful book, full of important, actionable lessons. This past Sum…
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Jiri Nenicka on Samizdat and Resisting Totalitarian Censorship
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Libri Prohibiti is a nonprofit, independent, archival research library located in Prague, Czech Republic that collects samizdat and exile literature. Founded by Jiri Gruntorad after the fall of the communist regime its holdings include some 40,000 monographs, periodicals, reference resources, and audiovisual materials. In addition to dissident arti…
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Naomi Bacon on Marketing Books on Social Media
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Naomi Bacon is a seasoned book marketer, and founder of The Tandem Collective. She has worked with JK Rowling’s agency, The Blair Partnership, as well as Pottermore, Pan Macmillan, Penguin and Hachette. Her ambition has always been "to be at the forefront of digital innovation, creating meaningful connections between publishing partners, content cr…
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Michael Zantovsky on Vaclav Havel and writing the biography of a close friend
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Michael Žantovský is a Czech diplomat, author and translator. He is a former Czech Ambassador to the United Kingdom, as well as to Israel and the United States. He has translated more than fifty works of fiction, drama and poetry, mostly by contemporary American and British writers including James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, E.L. Doctoro…
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John Owen on the best bookshop I've ever been in, in my life
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John Owen is a bookseller who runs the events program at the English Bookshop at Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus in Berlin. That English Bookshop? Probably the best I've ever been in, in my life. We talk about, among other things: being blown away; bookshop lighting; window seating; how to display books; mixing things up and discovering new titles; boo…
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Elisabeth Ruge, Germany's leading literary agent
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Elisabeth Ruge is a German editor, publisher and literary agent. She currently heads the Elisabeth Ruge Agency which she founded in 2014. In 1994 she established the Berlin Verlag publishing house together with her then husband Arnulf Conradi and Veit Heinichen. I met Elisabeth at her home on the outskirts of Berlin to discuss the roles she has pla…
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Jonathan Landgrebe on Suhrkamp Verlag, Germany's Faber & Faber
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Jonathan Landgrebe is the publisher of Suhrkamp Verlag. We met at his offices in Berlin to talk about his role as head of one of Germany's most revered publishing houses, and to riff off Siegfried Unseld's book The Author and His Publisher. Topics covered in our conversation include: important books that just don't sell; the publisher-author relati…
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Pamela Paul on her role as books editor at The New York Times
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Pamela Paul was books editor at the New York Times from 2013 to March 2022 when she became an opinion columnist for the newspaper. We talk mostly about the role that books editors play in the lifecycle of 'the book.' I also whine a fair amount about how I don't like the fact that she left her position plus we diverge into discussion about Pamela's …
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James Marsh on making love and encyclopedias
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Why listen to James Marsh? Because he knows about love and encyclopedias. He grew up in The Junction district of Toronto surviving a difficult childhood, and began his career in publishing at Holt Rinehart and Winston where he was editor of a Centennial history of Canada entitled Unity and Diversity. He later became executive editor of McClelland a…
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Nick Anthony on why he's workshopping his controversial first novel
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Nick Anthony is a writer, stand-up comic, and screen-writer. He's participating in this year's Prague Summer Program for Writers and his novel, tentatively entitled Two Hits of Acid in Cambodia, was just workshopped this past week. We talk about the experience, but not before discussing magic, stand-up comedy writing; new material that kills; God c…
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Alexandra Pringle on arm-hair and other secrets to great editing
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Why listen to Alexandra Pringle? Because Richard Charkin told me that she's the best editor in the English speaking world, that's why. Alexandra was editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury Publishing for more than two decades. She was recently appointed Executive Publisher. She began her publishing career at the British magazine Art Monthly before joining th…
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Marius Kociejowski reflects on the Soul of the Book Trade
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What's not to like here? Marius Kociejowski is charming, erudite and funny. Why should you listen to him? He's just written a memoir about the soul of the book trade. What happens in bookstores doesn't happen elsewhere he says. The multifariousness of human nature is more on show here than anywhere else, he says, and "I think it’s because of…
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Richard Katrovas on Creative Writing Programs and Publishing First Books
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I'm in Prague for the Summer. Going to be participating in one of the world's leading creative writing programs. I interviewed its founder Richard Katrovas. Why listen to Richard? Having run the Prague Summer Program for Writers for more than two decades, he knows a lot about the process of teaching creative writing; plus he knows karate. We talk a…
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Mark Andrews on Collecting Books about the Science and Engineering of Water
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Why did I interview Mark Andrews? Because he's a fellow Canadian, he's an exceptional book collector who brings an engineer's mind to the task, and he's just published a beautiful book featuring selections from his book collection, entitled The Science and Engineering of Water; An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics…
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Mark Samuels Lasner on book collecting, after the dopamine
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Why am I interviewing Mark Samuels Lasner for a third time? Because he's a recognized and respected book collector who knows how to speak intelligently and amusingly about books. And though we've already talked about his impressive collections that cover late 19th century British literary culture, and The Bodley Head, I wanted to learn about what h…
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Kat McKenna on how Tik Tok's BookTok sells books
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I came across Kat McKenna's name in an article written by Alison Flood in The Guardian last year. I'd googled Tik Tok's "Book-Tok" because I'd heard it was moving a lot of YA books and wanted to learn more. Kat was quoted in Alison's piece. It was clear she knew what made BookTok tick. I contacted her and now she's on the show. Kat has worked in UK…
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Stephen Enniss on special collections libraries and value
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Stephen Enniss is director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. Previous posts include Head Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Director of Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library where he made a series of impressive acquisitions including the archives of Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie a…
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Sarah Miniaci on how to publicize a book in 2022
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Sarah Miniaci is a freelance book publicist with fifteen years of experience in the New York and Toronto markets. Ken Whyte's Sutherland House is one of her clients. Ken interviewed Sarah for a recent issue of Shush, his excellent Substack newsletter on the publishing business. Together they surveyed today's new publishing landscape. With the help …
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Bob Rae on Orwell's Politics and the English Language, totalitarianism and genocide
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Bob Rae is a Canadian diplomat, lawyer, former Premier of Ontario, and former interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, he is currently Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations. He has been elected to federal and provincial parliaments 11 times (between 1978 and 2013),…
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Stuart Kells reveals the truth about Allen Lane and Penguin Books
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Author/historian Stuart Kells has been chasing rare books and other bookish treasures since childhood. In the 1980s he went for classic sci-fi paperbacks from Ace and Dell, and authors such as Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. When he moved to Melbourne in the summer of 1989 he was amazed by the city’s bookshops, especially secondhand shops - not…
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Laura J. Miller updates us on Reluctant Capitalists her book on bookselling
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Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail sectors, has evolved from an business dominated by independent bookstores to one in which chain stores have significant market share. This transformation has often been a less-than-smooth process, especially so in bookselling, argues Laura J. Miller, because more than most other consumer goo…
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Jonathan Kay on how to be a Ghostwriter
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Jonathan Kay is a Canadian journalist. He was editor-in-chief of The Walrus magazine, and is a senior editor of Quillette. He was previously comment pages editor, columnist, and blogger for the Toronto-based Canadian daily newspaper National Post, and continues to contribute to the newspaper on a freelance basis. He's also a ghostwriter, best known…
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Kathryn Schulz on Death and Love, Memoirs and Essays, and
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Kathryn Schulz joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and a National Magazine Award for “The Really Big One,” her story on seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Previously, she was the book critic for New York, the editor of the environmental magazine Grist, and a reporter and edito…
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Larry Grobel on how he writes his short stories
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Larry Grobel is a journalist, author and teacher. He has written more than 25 books including Conversations with Capote (which received a PEN Special Achievement award) and The Art of the Interview (which has been used as a text in many journalism schools), most of his books however are short story collections. His latest is called The Narcissist. …
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James Wood on his role as a book critic
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James Wood is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. He was The Guardian's chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995, and a senior editor at The New Republic between 1995 and 2007. Since roughly that time he's taught the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and has been a staff writer and book critic at The New Yorker magazine.…
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William Taylor on how to sell your books through an auction house
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William Taylor Jr. is a cataloger with PBA Galleries, a San Francisco-based auction house for rare books and ephemera; he specializes in fine literature, counterculture and poetry. He's an avid reader, and a prolific writer. His first book of fiction is included in the curriculum at select universities across the United States. In 2013 he was the r…
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Booker Prize winner Damon Galgut on how he writes novels
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Damon Galgut is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise and shortlisted for the prize in 2003 and 2010 right about the time I first interviewed him at his apartment in Cape Town (listen here). Damon was head boy at Pretoria Boys High School, matriculating in 1981, and then studied dram…
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Brendan Sherar on Biblio.com's Used Book Marketplace and first ever Virtual Book Fair
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Biblio.com started as a price comparison engine for new and used books in 2000. Later, this price comparison engine became SearchBiblio.com famous for several years as the Internet's fastest "metasearch" site for books. In the summer of 2003 Biblio.com launched as a used books marketplace, working off a 'triple bottom line' using these goals: achie…
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Glenn Horowitz on being a "notorious" bookseller & archives dealer
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Glenn Horowitz is an agent in the sale and placement of culturally significant archives to research institutions throughout the United States. Authors, artists, musicians, designers, and photographers represented include Bob Dylan, Norman Mailer, James Salter, Eve Babitz, Deborah Eisenberg, David Foster Wallace, Vladimir Nabokov, and many more. We …
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John Sargent on his career in book publishing
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John Sargent is an American book publisher; until recently he was the CEO of Macmillan Publishers USA, and Executive Vice President of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group where he oversaw global trade operations; he was also responsible for Macmillan Learning, the company’s US-based higher education business. We talk via Zoom about his caree…
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Jerry Kelly on book and bookseller catalogue design
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Jerry Kelly is a book designer, calligrapher and type designer. Before starting his own design business in 1998 he was Vice President of The Stinehour Press. Prior to this he worked as a designer at A. Colish. Jerry's work has been honored frequently; for example, his book designs have been selected more than thirty times for the AIGA “Fift…
