Books about Books: A History of Oak Knoll Press, Part 16: Our Greek Friend, continued

By Bob Fleck

Our relationship with Staikos grew exponentially as we got to know and trust each other. John was a comrade to Kostas in their mutual love of the history of the growth of language, and they went to a number of conferences and archeological sites together. I decided to visit him in Athens while on one of my European trips and scheduled a flight from London to Athens in March of 2003 to spend time with him. As many of you probably remember, that is exactly when the Iraq War began and the Greeks were not in favor of what the US had done. Kostas picked me up at the airport and a normal 40 minute drive took over three hours because the entire city of Athens was rallying against the war.

My arrival day was especially interesting as Millie and I had donated a large collection of books to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt and the Egyptian Embassy in Athens had planned a large reception in our honor that evening. Kostas and I got to the hotel and I barely had time to change into better clothes for the reception which was luckily across the street from my hotel at the Embassy. I was awarded a very large medal by the Greek supporters of this library at the reception and the Egyptian ambassador was the picture of charm and culture in what had to be an awkward situation.

Kostas was the perfect host and showed me the city as it was my first trip to Athens. I was invited to his home for dinner that night which again proved a bit strange as he lives right next to the President of the Greek Republic and soldiers were everywhere as I attempted to get there for the dinner date. After a number of checks I was pointed to the correct building where I was warmly welcomed by Kostas and his sister. I was shown parts of his personal collection which were soul-stirring to an antiquarian bookseller. When it was time for dinner, Kostas pointed me to a chair and commanded that I sit there. Not aware of the social etiquette of the Greek dining experience, I sat as instructed and had a glass of wine as booksellers are known to do. Kostas, with that impish smile I have grown to enjoy so much, then quickly opened the curtains in front of me and there, under floodlights, was the Acropolis. I was stunned with the magnificent view.

My next visit to Kostas was immediately after a Prague Committee meeting of the ILAB in 2007 when Millie and I flew to visit him. We did some serious work on publishing projects while Millie toured the city. His charm was apparent and showed Greek hosting expertise with great aplomb. It was Millie’s birthday and he planned a very nice birthday dinner at one of his favorite restaurants. Our relationship with this man continues to grow as we utilize his letterpress shop to print books for our publishing program and publish new titles that he writes for us.

To be continued …

Bob Fleck founded Oak Knoll Books in 1976 to fill a void in the booksellers world. Today Oak Knoll Books maintains an inventory of about 20,000 titles on books about books and a rapidly growing backlist of over 950 titles published and distributed under its imprint, Oak Knoll Press. Bob Fleck is ILAB President of Honour. He was ILAB President from 2002 to 2006. Each Friday the Oak Knoll Biblio-Blog publishes an excerpt from Bob Fleck's autobiography (“Books about Books“, published in 2008). The excerpts are also presented on ILAB.org. Thank you very much to Bob Fleck for giving us permission

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