Book Collecting

I’m not a serious ‘book collector’. In fact my books hardly warrant the title collection – they are more of a random accumulation. But every so often I do fall for a beautiful volume or a book signed by a favourite author, and then fancy myself some sort of sophisticated literary connoisseur for a few moments. And just sometimes, a book will peek an interest in it as a physical rather than a literary work, and then things like this happen…

No Jacket Required? Book collector’s guide to identifying fake dust jackets

This guide for collectors on how to identify a fake dust jacket dates from my days as a secondhand bookseller and dealer and was written in 2005 (ish). It has been previously published on other websites and appeared in ibooknet’s June 2005 newsletter.

Why Collect Uncorrected Bound Proofs and Advance Reader Copies?

This article on what attracts collectors to uncorrected bound proofs (UBPs) and advance reader copies (ARCs) dates from my days as a secondhand bookseller and dealer – may be 2006 or  2007. It has been previously published on other websites but I think all of them are defunct now (other than BookAddiction.co.uk, which is a another, as yet undeveloped bookish site that I run).  So, just in case it’s worth preserving, I’ve re-posted here on the BookAddiction Blog.