Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, September 25, 2023 8:41 AM
The nights are colder, the days shorter, pumpkin spiced coffee is ubiquitous: it’s witching time.
Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions, 1681, by Joseph Glanvil (or Glanvill, if you prefer). A small octavo, rebound in plain modern buckram, this title is one of the prize pieces showcased in the Rare Book Room right now.
Weaving Puritan theology with 17th century philosophy, Glanvil (1636–1680) conjured a theory of the supernatural born from his conviction that the world was unknowable through the method of pure reason and that the supernatural deserved a closer look...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, July 24, 2023 10:20 AM
It’s late July already. Though the 4th (and the 14th) have passed by, here’s a look at some items in our rare book collection that take us back to the Revolutions of July: The American Revolution, 1775–1783, and the French Revolution, 1789–1799.
Why would July foment revolutions? It’s the perfect season. Too hot to sleep, the roads are dry and clear, which means that artillery can move easily, and there are no crops to reap or sow...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, June 26, 2023 8:36 AM
In the first chapter of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, the young d’Artagnan is sent out into the world armed with three gifts from his father: a yellow Béarn horse “without a hair in its tail,” 15 crowns in ready money, and a “recipe for a certain balsam…which has the miraculous virtue of curing all wounds which do not reach the heart.”
Not a bad thing to have if you’re determined to become one of the King’s Musketeers.
It is his mother who supplies the recipe. The action in Dumas’s adventure classic takes place in France between 1625...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, May 15, 2023 9:10 AM
Note: the Rose City Book and Paper Fair is happening June 16–17 at the Red Lion in NE Portland. There’s a $5 entry fee. Approximately 60 dealers who are part of the Cascade Booksellers Association will attend. Powell’s will be exhibiting at booth #32. It’s a book-and-paper love fest! See you there.
Legendary* bookman Peter Howard named his Berkeley area bookstore ‘Serendipity,’ which means the occurrence and development of events by chance, in a happy or benevolent way. I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr. Howard and his store...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, April 10, 2023 9:08 AM
Soundcheck
Are you a bibliophile who simply needs more biblio in your life? Here's the solution: visit the website of Portland artist and Powell's customer Bithia Bjurman. She finds inspiration for her artwork in nature, food, her family, and at Powell's. Her pastels are gorgeous.
After drinking in the amazing artwork, head over to the Biblio Bunny's Instagram page. The B.B. gives Powell's a lot of love and highlights new additions to her carefully curated collection of antique and rare tomes...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, March 3, 2023 9:02 AM
Nestled in the third floor Pearl Room of the flagship Powell's in downtown Portland you'll find the Rare Book Room, or the "RBR" as it is colloquially known.
One thousand square feet of retail space is dedicated to our most beautiful — and expensive — books. This is the home of our oldest book, the works of Decimus Magnus Ausonius, printed in 1494. The room also houses our second most expensive book, the 2 volume "Journals of Lewis & Clark," printed in 1814 and priced at $25,000.00...
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, June 30, 2010 3:51 PM
Who's afraid of Helmut Newton? I am. More specifically, I'm afraid that I'll have to lift or move our signed limited edition copy of Newton's Sumo one more time. It weighs 66 pounds, and if I drop it on my foot I'll be in a cast for weeks. So heavy and unwieldy that it shipped with a custom folding stand, Sumo is the kind of art object you either love, or hate. According to Taschen, the book's publisher, it was the most expensive book production of the 20th century. Having escaped Germany in 1938, Helmut Newton forged a career in fashion photography that spanned over 30 years. (You can check out his biography on Vogue.com.) He was killed in 2004 when his car crashed into a wall of the famous Chateau Marmont in Beverly Hills, and his ashes are buried in Berlin, next to Marlene Dietrich. As everyone knows, you can never be too thin or too rich. Though we have only one copy of the signed limited edition of Sumo, Powell's does stock the trade edition. It weighs in at a slim 15.7 pounds. And many thanks to Matthew, Gary, and Michael Powell for helping me wrestle with the 66-pound copy of
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, May 5, 2010 1:07 PM
"One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings; it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand."—Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt I've been thinking about the great reading experiences I've enjoyed in the last few months. What makes a reader? Is it the ability to sit quietly and fall completely into a narrative? Is it the genuine enthusiasm that we feel when we hand a book to a friend and say, "You've got to read this!"? What makes a book collector? Love of the reading experience, love of a particular author, love of a single title? A bit of madness can't hurt. Surely the answer has more to do with emotions — desire, yearning, delight — one usually associates with sex or food. It is not a surfeit of money or shelf space that compels us. I've been thinking also of the generation growing up with eBooks, with the Kindle and iPhone and online gaming and the social network of Facebook. Most likely, most will grow to find real friends beyond the portal of computer screens and text messages; how many will discover the book? There have been many memorable partings in history and in literature. Some were melodramatic, some overwrought, and a precious few that were perfect. This is my last bi-weekly posting on the subject of rare books for the "pages" of Powells.com. Thanks for reading.
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Rare Books
by Kirsten Berg, April 21, 2010 12:11 PM
Whether you view Sir Aurel Stein as a tomb raider or as the savior of precious cultural objects might depend on whether you are Chinese or British. An impartial observer might merely wonder: Sir Aurel Who? Sir Aurel Stein was born in Hungary in 1862 and later became a British citizen. He was a linguist, explorer, archaeologist, and scholar. Many of the artifacts he collected are in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library at Oxford holds his papers. Stein traveled many thousands of miles through the Middle East and Asia along the ancient trade route known as the Silk Road. He "discovered" the caves at Dunhuang and he brought the Diamond Sutra, the oldest known complete printed text, out of Asia in 1907. He died in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1943 at the age of 83. To understand his place in the panorama of Asian studies, Buddhist literature, art history, and linguistics is not an easy task. He played a part in the "Great Game" of exploration and geopolitics, as did the famous explorers Francis Younghusband and Sven Hedin. He lived the kind of life of study and travel that was probably only possible during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was monumental. It is only fitting that one of the most impressive sets we have right now is Stein's Detailed Report of Explorations in Westernmost China. Consisting of four folio volumes and a map portfolio bound in silk, the books are housed in a custom folding case that, when laid out flat, is a map of the Silk Road. Whether or not this fabulous production of Stein's work appeals to you might depend upon whether you are Chinese or British. Or English-speaking: the text throughout is printed in Chinese.
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