Tuesday, September 22, 2009

New Book Review by Charles Seluzicki



'The Man Who Loved Books Too Much'September 19, 2009, 10:00AM
As both a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and a friend and colleague of the booksellers who finally caught the often-charming book thief John Charles Gilkey, it's fascinating to finally read a story that I experienced, only a few years ago, as e-mail alerts and dinner conversation at book fairs.
Allison Hoover Bartlett's "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession," is a book about entering a world that is new to her, the world of serious book collecting. Befriending both Ken Sanders, the bookseller who for six years headed security for the ABAA, and Gilkey, who methodically stole from some of the best of those booksellers, she unravels tales of private obsession and touches deeper issues and themes that inform our understandings about people who collect -- not merely gather or assemble, but consciously and systematically collect -- rare books.

Read On

Monday, September 21, 2009

Northwest writers at work: Tess Gallager in Raymond Carver country By Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

Courtesy Tess Gallagher
Raymond Carver wrote a poem called "Gravy" about the years after he stopped drinking and met Tess Gallagher. "Don't weep for me," Carver wrote. "I'm a lucky man."


The mailbox still says Ray Carver and Tess Gallagher. His Mercedes-Benz sedan, the one he bought while wearing his bedroom slippers, is in the garage. His study is pretty much the way he left it in 1988, the typewriter in its place and the picture of Chekhov on the wall. The books on the shelves are the ones he wrote and the ones he put there himself.
But time has moved on at Ridge House, where Carver died 21 years ago. On an outside wall hangs a copy of a painting by Alfredo Arreguin, a portrait of Gallagher with the words to her poem "I Have Never Wanted to March" on it. It's faded from the sun and rain, but she's going to leave it up until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. Two dogs jump and bark at the window until she comes to the door and silences them.
"Hashi! Peggy! That's enough now!"

Read On

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Pawn Stars A Must See

My favorite show on TV. A blue collar version of Antique Roadshow complete with Idiots, Family Dynamics, and Bleeped Out Swearing.. Oh yeah, and some really cool things being brought in to sell/pawn in Vegas!