Given the current uncertainty around planned events, please find below an update from the Dutch antiquarian booksellers association on the ILAB Congress 2020.
“I felt strong enough to lift a mountain” declared Alexandre Dumas after a visit to Georgia in 1858.
Presidents of ILAB’s member associations certainly felt equally inspired after a week of meetings in the capital, Tbilisi.
ILAB responds to amendments made to the EU's proposal: Proposal for a regulation of the European parliament and of the Council on the import of cultural goods
Proposal for a regulation (COM(2017)0375 – C8-0227/2017 – 2017/0158(COD))
The ABA and ILAB look back at a long history. The ABA is relaunching its flagship fair in London this year, the oldest antiquarian book fair in the world, under the auspices of ILAB.
This text by the late Anthony Rota, ABA bookseller and ILAB President of Honour, was published in 2008 in the ABA Directory.
If proposed new EU regulations are approved, European book collectors and dealers may be in for an annoying surprise when they make their first imported purchases in 2019.
The term "propaganda" has come to have a negative connotation in much of the English-speaking world. But in some places, the word is neutral or even positive. Why this difference? The reasons can be traced through the word's etymology and the way that this strategy of communication has evolved over the centuries.
Sheila Markham in conversation with Edward Bayntun-Coward of George Bayntun
The late Pierre Berès, most eminent of French book dealers, rang up a while ago and insisted on speaking to George Bayntun. When I told him that it would not be possible, he insisted that he only dealt with the owner…
"One room was abandoned when the piles neared the ceiling, and at some point a subsidence of books blocked the door from the inside, sealing the room off. He established an annex in the garage, where piles of loose books mingled with unopened purchases from local shops and parcels from overseas ..."
The challenge for virtually all collectors of John Steinbeck, whether novice or grizzled veteran, is the same -- money! If you still need a pretty copy of Tortilla Flat, a first in jacket, can you spare that extra $10,000 it's going to take to acquire the book?
Today, 8th March, is International Women's Day. Has it become another PR event, another "hashtag" or does it still mean anything to us? Access to education for women, access to literature, women's rights, equality?
An image comes to mind, "The Reading Girl" by the German painter Henning from the year 1828. Its simplicity and calm has made this artwork stand out and be reproduced many times. It is one of the major attractions of the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts "Bildermuseum".
The Dutch Antiquarian Publishers' Association, NVvA has just published their joint catalogue and welcomes booksellers and collectors this weekend to its annual fair in Amsterdam!
