Been fishing for a long while. Time to come in out of the weather.

by Vince McCaffrey | Aug 1, 2023 | Annotations

Bookselling is not what it used to be. Never was, really. For me, it was always what I was willing to make of it. It’s probably that way with most independent booksellers. I’ve known a few and the motivations are as diverse as the individuals themselves. Maybe an...

What I have learned as a bookseller

by Vince McCaffrey | Apr 22, 2022 | Annotations

(Too little, for sure. And all of it arguable.) I have learned that Harper Torchbooks, a non-fiction softcover imprint of Harper & Row from 1956 to 1979, are of such generally excellent quality that they should always be looked for when buying used books,...

James Wu

by Vince McCaffrey | Aug 20, 2020 | Annotations

A friend has passed away. Given my own age, this in itself is not surprising, but James Wu was a considerably younger man and remembered that way even more so because we had not seen him in a bunch of years and when last we did, at a gathering of the old crew, his...

Resolution 451

by Vince McCaffrey | Jul 16, 2020 | Annotations

So, it begins. This is the first draft of a declaration of independence—of a sort. Much like the novel that spawned it, an odd sort of novel, this declaration is not of the usual kind. It is intended to be made not to a public, but to yourself. How well you keep to...

Neglected Books: In Praise of Those We’ve Lost to the Literary Wilderness

by Vince McCaffrey | Apr 26, 2020 | Annotations

My favorite new website is most extraordinary in so many ways that a biblio-besotted Robert Browning would have to do it justice. But this is just me. I’ll do what I can. . . . In truth, it’s what I have been doing for my entire life: making note and...