cosmopolis

Chicago Antiquarian Book Fair

How much I used to look forward to book fairs! We would wait in line, hoping that our Book of Dreams would be waiting at a bargain price, then finally rush inside, pleasantly dazed by the multiplicity of booths and titles. Book fairs, in the old days, was how you learned about books: you would pluck Catcher in the Rye off the shelf of dealer A, see it was X, and then see dealer B selling another copy for less, or maybe more. The dealers priced from the gut, which is to say experience, and the collectors bought the same way. With many dealers, the only time you got a chance to see new stock was at fairs.

The Internet killed book fairs, the way it killed so many other things (blind dates, newspapers). What drove fair purchases was a sense of anxiety: I've never seen this before and may never again. These days, why  would you buy a book at a fair if there were a better or cheaper copy online? 

The Chicago Antiquarian Fair, which took place today in a room at DePaul, limps along, but just barely. I sauntered in a few hours late, confident I hadn't missed any bargains. As always, it was fun to look. One dealer had a large collection of Rivers of America titles, being sold as a set. There was a second state jacket "One Hundred Years of Solitude," cheap at $450 but then Marquez is in decline. There were some Jim Harrison titles I wanted and couldn't afford. 

I remember leaving fairs with a bag of first editions, after which I would repair to some coffee shop and gloat over my purchases. Today, all urgency gone, I bought little: a $10 copy of The Confidential Agent, the first Bantam printing from 1952. I had never seen it before, and it was crisp. I also bought two copies of fine books. But otherwise, my only acquisition was a bunch of authors and titles I wanted to look up online.

Nobel predictions

Kadare or Achebe. You heard it here first.

DFW, now a bestseller

When Wallace died, his books were holding steady, at best, as a collectible. His most recent novel was still Infinite Jest, which was 12 years old. Novels are what really drive collectors, much more than story collections or, worse, essay collections.

The top price for Infinite Jest when he died was $185 for a mint signed copy from Laing Books. Other signed copies were available for less than $100. Now the cheapest signed copy is $895, for a remaindered copy in a crappy jacket. The top price, from modernrare.com, is $2,500.

The Broom of the System, his first book, has always been tough in hardcover, because it was done in a simultaneous paperback. Supposedly there were only 1,300 hardcovers. The top prices for signed copies before he died was $1,500 from Serendipity, a copy from Larry Moskowitz that he had been trying to sell for approximately forever, and a $1,500 copy from Royal. Now Royal has a briefly inscribed copy for $3,500, while Vicarious has a signed proof for $7,500, about seven times the going rate last month.

Even the Girl With Curious Hair, his most common book, has an asking price of $700 for a signed copy.

People will be asking high prices for signed Wallace books into the indefinite future. A signed or, better, inscribed copy of Infinite Jest strikes me as a reasonable purchase, although not at $2,500. It's his key book, and will be celebrated after the journalism has faded.

ABEbooks, the used and rare site, reports that Wallace was their bestselling author in September.