An average person’s notion of a book collector, we’re told in director D.W. Young’s delightful documentary — available via Amazon Prime — is a middle-aged (or older) man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, and a pipe. And a glass of sherry.
Although some of the individuals profiled and quoted in this film fit that description, an equal number do not; indeed, one of the savviest next-gen rare book dealers is Rebecca Romney, a go-to expert on TV’s Pawn Stars, who has been in the trade since 2007.
Argosy Books — co-owned by, from left, Adina Cohen, Naomi Hample and Judith
Lowry — is one of the few original bookstores remaining in New York City, from a
time when dozens of similar outlets, on Fourth Avenue alone, prompted a section of
that street to be called "Book Row."
Like everybody else here, she’s enthusiastic and impressively articulate … and perhaps just a trifle unconventional. It goes with the territory.
Aside from Romney and a few other geographical outliers, Young’s film spends most of its time in New York’s book world, with its assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers. The tone and atmosphere are unapologetically Big Apple, but the charm of Young’s approach is the ease with which he slips us into this scene.
This film was made by book people, for book people; folks who use their dictionaries as door stops probably won’t last 10 minutes. But those of us who love walking into a home with a wall of stuffed floor-to-ceiling shelves, and who always smile at the faintest whiff of that characteristic “old book smell,” are certain to enjoy this alternately fascinating and whimsical 99-minute journey.
Actually, anybody with a collector’s mentality likely will see themselves in many of these folks.
“The world is divided into people who collect things,” one dealer observes, “and people who don’t know what the hell these people are doing, collecting things. [They think] if you’re a collector, you’re just a sick, obsessive-compulsive person who would sell your grandmother to buy something you really like.”
(Which could be true, in a few cases.)
The film opens at the Park Avenue Armory’s annual Antiquarian Book Fair, the world’s largest event of its type, where more than 200 American and international dealers display a massive assortment of rare books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera in the realms of literature, art, medicine, photography, autographs, first editions and, well, honestly, I couldn’t keep track. Cinematographer Peter Bolte’s overhead view of the place is breathtaking.
It’s somewhat appropriate that the massive building’s large clock long ago stopped working; as with Las Vegas casinos, the Book Fair evades any acknowledgment of time’s passage.
Most of these folks don’t regard books as merely something to read. A book’s physicality is a slice of history that tells its own story: how and when it was bound, and with what materials; what the author may have written, when inscribing it to somebody; the condition in which it was maintained, and the degree to which it was cherished … distinctive characteristics wholly absent in a Kindle e-book.
Although, as famed author and essayist Fran Lebowitz observes, having wandered through the Fair aisles, not everybody treats things with the proper respect.
“I was surprised at how cavalier people were around the books,” she admits. “I saw a guy put a drink on a book. If he did that in my house, I’d kill him!”
Lebowitz’s sardonic humor punctuates much of this film; she admits to being terrified by the thought of handling any of the most precious items.
“One person did show me a book, even though I told her I cannot buy it. I’m afraid to even touch a book like that. I feel my life would turn into an O. Henry short story: Now I have to spend all my money for the rest of my life, trying to pay you back for this thing.”
It’s irritating, though, that Young fails to identify Lebowitz or many of the other on-camera folks who offer alternately informative and mordant observations. New Yorkers may recognize Lebowitz, Gay Talese, Susan Orlean and others, but most of this film’s viewers won’t have the faintest idea who’s speaking at a given moment.
But that’s mostly true of the “color commentators.” Young does name many of the dealers profiled, such as Adina Cohen, Naomi Hample and Judith Lowry, the captivating sisters who manage the venerable Argosy Book Store, a six-story townhouse founded by their father in 1925. It remains New York City’s oldest independent bookstore.
Others include David Bergman, “the smallest dealer with the biggest books,” referring to his focus on giant-size tomes; Justin Schiller, who specializes in children’s books; James Cummins, whose immaculate Madison Avenue location is the tasteful antithesis of the cozily disheveled atmosphere favored by others; and Stephen Massey, founder of Christie’s New York Book Department, who auctioned Da Vinci’s Hammer codex, the most valuable book ever sold.
(It went to Bill Gates, on Nov. 11, 1994. For $30,802,500.)
The field’s history is explored via early pioneers such as A.S.W. Rosenbach, dubbed by the French as “Le Napoléon des Livres” (“The Napoleon of Books”), who popularized the collecting of American literature at a time — in the 1920s and ’30s — when only European literature was considered collectible. Another marvelous detail: Researchers Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern discovered that Little Women author Louisa May Alcott also wrote pulp fiction under the pseudonym A.M. Bernard.
Young inserts a few sobering details, most notably the fact that New York City had 358 bookstores in the 1950s … and only 79, when this film was made. A wistful tone occasionally creeps in, as some of these folks discuss their passion: a recognition that a door is closing, and might not open again.
That’s a fear recognized by all bibliophiles these days, as brick-and-mortar bookstores disappear. (How have the sisters kept Argosy Books alive? Their father wisely purchased the building, way back in the day.) That’s why this film is both entertaining and essential, with its celebration of All Things Book.
Give it a read.
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