Used and Rare

Have just finished Lawrence and Nancy Goldtsone's Used and Rare, their account of the initial introduction to book collecting and their subsequent education in the arcana of book collecting.

An engaging work. Chatty, accessible and pleasing. They start out as established readers who move beyond traditional new bookstores and start haunting used book stores. In the process they become intrigued as to why one used book might be $10 and another $1,000.

Along the way, they move up the biblio food chain, tentatively and with trepidation buying a first edition, venturing into the inner temple of rare and antiquarian books.

While quiet and to some small degree arcane, it is a pleasing journey they make. Much is learned along the way. They engage with most of the significant issues: why do some books survive and others don't, why are some books best sellers when they appear but fall from popular attention later, similarly why are some books critically received but garner no popular following, what motivates a collector to pay ten times the received price for a collectible book?

It is actually, and unintentionally, kind of an intriguing investigation into the details and mechanics of Hayek's The Use of Knowledge in Society often referred to as the Knowledge Problem - in a macro economy, how can any planner know enough to properly set the price for a good? Hayek's position was that it could not be done except by the aggregate unconscious decisions and choices of people in a free market. The Goldstones show in detail why that is the case. The last couple of chapters are particularly pertinent.

I spend a lot of money on books but rarely much per book. I am more interested in the content of a book than its collectability. My reading tastes only marginally overlap with those of the Goldstone's. All that said, everyone knows the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction when you finally find that particular book you have been seeking.

A pleasant book.