On January 2, 2008, ARBAM goes active.

Keep posted.

Attorneys General of the United States

Each United States Attorney General has an official portrait painted. In 1985, the Department of Justice issued a hardback book which displays each official portrait, along with brief biographies of both the Attorney General portrayed, and the artist.

The last Attorney General featured in the book is William French Smith, who was in Ronald Reagan’s cabinet from 1981 until 1985. His portrait was painted by well known portraiture artist, Robert Bruce Williams.

The copy of the book which I have was inscribed by William French Smith to artist Robert Bruce Williams. I also have a copy of the letter from the office of the Attorney General presenting two copies of the book to Mr. Williams and asking that Mr. Williams sign one and return it to the Attorney General. Presumably, he did. I also have a copy of the program for the short ceremony at which the portrait was presented, where Mr. Smith, Mr. Williams and then-current Attorney General Edwin Meese III spoke, as we all a copy of the official invitation to the presentment ceremony and to a smaller reception afterword. Finally, I have a copy of a letter from then Attorney General Smith addressed to Mr. Williams, dated November 2, 1983. This letter was written to the artist shortly after the completion of the portrait: “…It was a great pleasure sitting for you, but your work is even more pleasing. Even Jean — who I expected to be the harshest critic — was delighted.”

The book and documents will be for sale.  The signed book alone is probably worth about $20.  But with the letters and invitations….priceless.

Last Lines (can you match these with the first lines in the previous posting?)

“Oh, God.  Oh, God.  Things are really going to be hard for us now.”

“”Thank you,” he whispered, set down the camera and stepped out across the bright, bare rock.”

“Just for a moment he stands waiting, listening through the clear air – an owl answering an owl, the bark of a kit fox, the song of the crickets underlying everything, all this – then he pulls the trigger.”

“For I find myself unable to do anything but believe.”

“I grabbed Alex’s broad shoulders and wrapped his arms around me, smelling his warm morning smell and looking beyond him, through the large window, at Anne Frank’s view of the world: a chestnut tree; past that, a church tower; past that, the sky.”

“Boy Jimmy counts out what’s left of his change.”

“Am thanh cua tieng keu nhu xe long van vang vong…”

First Lines

I like first lines of books, so here goes a random selection:

“Even though when he told me I wrenched it off my finger and pitched it at him so hard it stuck with a thock right into the cloth of his green down vest, he said I should keep the ring.”

Suzanne Strempek Shea, Selling the Lite of Heaven

“Crescencio Ramirez is kneeling in the petunias by the patio when he hears the water begin its rush into the side bed. Makes him feel the need to relieve himself……”

Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Coachella

“I’m like a teenager when the phone rings”.

Mary Sojourner, Delicate

“She thinks he is having an affair”

Hal Niedzviecki, Smell It

“Everyone was going to New York City except my mother and me”

Dick Scanlan, Does Freddy Dance

“Adile felt the heavy airliner plunging downwards.”

Linda Lunday Nabhan, Kismet

“Bon tu cam cui lam viec khong ai noi voi ai mot loi.”

Thanh Thuong Hoang, Tien Si Le Mai

The Advantages of Living in Washington

There are many advantage to living in Washington (and, of course, some major disadvantages as well), one of which is (if you are interested in used books) that you can find many books that are signed by the authors, and inscribed to well known people as well.

Just one quick example, so you will know what I mean.

Mary Fisher, a wealthy and prominent young woman from Detroit, learned that she was HIV-positive (as was her ex-husband, from whom she was presumably infected).  This startling event changed a woman living a charmed life to a woman threatened with a deadly disease.  Her response was to become an advocate for people (and especially women and children) who are HIV-positive, which she remains to this day.

She has written a number of books on the subject, including a volume titled I’ll Not Go Quietly, published by Scribner in 1995.  I came across a copy of this book in a library book store, and was surprised to find that the inscription read:  “To President and Mrs. Clinton, for all of us who have walked this road….stay with us.  With love, Mary Fisher 6/14/95″

I don’t know the road that this book has traveled.  Did it ever get to the Clintons?  Did it accidentally get donated to the library?

I have come across many books like this.  They will be among the books we will be selling.

Fortune Magazine

The best word to describe the issues of Fortune Magazine from the late 1930s is ‘beautiful’.  That is what they were, and we will have a number of them for sale.

I am looking at the September 1939 issue right now.  In addition to a beautiful cover by artist Herbert Bayer and fascinating ads, there is a major article on Pacific Gas and Electric and water power politics in Southern California (think the movie “Chinatown”), almost twenty pages of text, photos and art work on the state of the Vatican City and the papacy, a poll which shows that 53%  of Americans do not want Roosevelt to have a third term (it is Fortune, after all), but that there was no consensus on who the best candidate would be (when asked the question, 63% said “I don’t know”, that only ten percent of the electorate thought a Republican victory was needed to ’save the country”, but 16.7% thought that a Republican victory would “be a calamity for the country”, articles about Wesson Oil and the recording industry, and an article about the newfound science of chemotherapy and its hope as a healing tool.  Each article is illustrated with black and white, and full color, art work, photographs, charts and diagrams.  The magazine measures 11 by 14.  It has 152 pages.  It used to cost $1 on the newsstands.

Postcards, We Get Postcards

And we are thinking of selling some of them along with our books. We will probably use E-Bay for our initial outlet for the post cards.

I reach into a box and pull out ten random examples of what you may find for sale:

1. A beautiful card mailed in 1914 to a Mme. Gallant in Paris, with a full color picture of a “Jeune fille Bedouine”, a full color picture of an attractive young woman in a green smock and many bangles, holding an attractive water or wine jar on her shoulder.

2. A French postcard, World War I vintage, with two lovers, one in military uniform, and an original yellow ribbon tied to the upper right corner, mailed to Mme. Juliette Pellatin.

3. An unmailed postcard with a picture of General George C. Marshall and a description of the George C. Marshall Research Library, probably from the 1960s

4. An attractive full color photograph of the U.S. Capitol on an unmailed card, which I would guess dates from the 1910s or 1920s.

5. La Porte Saint-Martin, Paris. The unmailed card is undated, but the vehicles are all horse driven.

6. A French language card, probably dating shortly after the end of World War I, in sepia and brown, showing “Mt. Liban – Fleuve du Chien” in Lebanon.

7. A card showing the Old Court House in St. Louis, home of the infamous Dred Scott trial, mailed to the Marchalls of Broadway, VA in 1910.

8. A post card mailed from Angola, stamp still affixed, addressed to Mr. Schultz in Lancaster County, PA, and mailed in 1911. The view is of the River Zaire.

9. A nice view of Eads Bridge, St. Louis, on a postcard mailed in 1907.

10. A card mailed in 1942, showing the performance space at the National Music Camp, Interlochen MI. There is a description on the back of the Interlochen radio broadcasts, every Saturday at 5 p.m., which is partly obliterated by a red stamp which says: “Banned until further notice by James C. Petrillo, President, American Federation of Musicians”. The message on the card from the sender does not mention Mr. Petrillo’s action.

Are You From Australia?

If you are, you may be interested in a soft cover copy of Above and Beyond , signed both by Paul Bycroft and by Anthony Griffis, detailing their journey in making several years’ episodes of the Australian TV program “Beyond 2000″.  There are no copies of this book, signed, on the internet web sites that I saw, so this is an unusual (I hesitate to say ‘rare’, which has other connotations) copy.

“Beyond 2000″ and its predecessor show “Towards 2000″ were aired in Australia over approximately a ten year period, highlighting developments in science and technology.  An American version of the show was carried for a shorter period of time by the Discovery Channel in the United States.  The book highlights something different–the travails (mainly humorous as a result of cultural differences) of the authors as they traveled the world filming their show.

Believe it or not, I think you would like this book.  Whoever you are.

Castro Won’t Be There Forever

And when he goes, you can be sure that travel to Cuba will open up for Americans.  And you will want to make sure that you are in possession of the right travel guides.

A. Richard Books and More will be offering a nice selection of vintage travel guides, including two important pre-Castro guides to Cuba, both “The Original Havana Visitors Guide for Shopping and Entertainment” and “The Blue Guide to Cuba”.

The 1948 “Blue Guide to Cuba” is a classic 285 soft cover guide book to the island.  Inviting you, on the back cover to “Come to Cuba by [Pan American] Clipper”, this book, complete with fold out maps, tells you everything you need to go to enjoy your vacation on the island, whether you are interested in historical sight seeing, entertainment, fine dining, deep sea fishing or gambling.  Or perhaps you are interested in Cuban foods, in driving regulations, in the English language schools and churches, in details about the sugar industry (almost 175 separate sugar mills are listed), Cuban foreign trade, medicinal springs or the theater?  They are all discussed here.

The 1951 Original Visitors Guide is a more modest softcover book, only 34 pages long (it also has a nice fold out map).  How many of these places to visit are still in operation: the Havana Yacht Club, The Country Club of Havana, the Jaimanitas Country and Yacht Club, the Vedado Tennis club and the Miramar Yacht Club?  You will have to go there to find out.  Nice ads in the booklet as well, including the Moishe Pipik restaurant (run by Mrs. Weinstein), the only Jewish American restaurant in Havana, where you can get “chicken soup with mandelach or kreplach, chopped chicken liver, apple strudel, gefilte fish, Kisch Ke, and other delicacies”.  The address is Acosta 211.  I wonder what is there now.

Perhaps when there is regime change, everything will revert to what there was before.  If so, only the holders of these two travel guides will be in the know.  (And for Cubanos now living abroad, these books will bring back terrific memories)

Books are Interesting in Various Ways

One of the books we will be offering for sale is called Dust of Our Brothers’ Blood. I will admit that I haven’t read it (but might). It was written by a woman named Jona Konopko, and published in 1941 for a little known Washington DC publishing house, The White Eagle Press. Konopko, born in Poland, was married to a Washington attorney; the book may have been self-published.

It is a novel, and the setting is Poland from the end of World War I until just after the German takeover in 1939. It is only about 300 pages long and, frankly, looks like it might be fascinating, if not for the story line (about which I know nothing), for the setting.

There are very few copies of this book available. I know of no others which have been signed by the author. And this copy was not only signed, but very intriguingly inscribed:

“Presented to Mrs Gladstone Williams, the well known “Helene” of The Washington Star, also the outstanding impresario of hat shows in Washington, as a slight expression of my appreciation for her friendly and efficient counsel and assistance in connection with my first hat show conducted by her. Jona Knopko Calhoun, Washington, D.C., April 10, 1948″

The well known “Helene”, 43 years later, in 1991, sent to book to her friend “Doda”, with an equally intriguing inscription.

One of a kind. Probably quite interesting to someone who studies life in Poland in the first half of the 20th century.

Opening paragraph:

“My native land is Poland. I was born in 1921, at Novy Sacz, a beautiful little Polish city in the Carpathian Mountains, near the Czecho-Slovakian border. My father was Count L____. My birth occurred shortly after his death. He had been a member of the Polish Legion, which fought against Germany and Austria in the World War. After the war ended, he was ill most of the time, because he had been wounded, and gassed…”

Read on.