1. ♫ I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling fifty-twoooo  ♫

            For the majority of readers, a year goal often includes increasing the number of books they read. Fifty-two is a common goal and a good one—a book for each week in the year. Goodreads will track this for you and will even count re-reads! The upside is that this goal will often motivate you to accomplish the number you set out to read, but it might also discourage you from reading that massive doorstopper of a book that’s been on your bucket list for ages.

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Welcome to the first in what we plan to be a series of features on book collectors and home libraries in Georgia and around the South.  

For the first year after opening Underground Books, I continued working part-time at my previous job, bar-tending at the Alley Cat, Carrollton’s wonderfully grungy college hipster dive bar. In the early days of the shop I was still doing the spring and summer circuit of Saturday morning yard sales in the region, hunting for inventory for the shelves of the still...

Among the scholarship, discovery, and biblio-adventures of our profession, community is one of the greatest characteristics that define the book trade. Whether in antiquarian books or new, we have enjoyed deep camaraderie and generous mentorship from fellow booksellers. We recently had the chance to spend time with Earlene Scott, whose bookshop Scott's Books served readers in nearby Newnan, Georgia from 1976 to 2013. Earlene was kind enough to share some of her experiences selling new books in West Georgia for 36 years, including her enduring love of books, her family's history with the notorious John Wallace, and her (often revealing and humorous) observations...

Ah, is there any humbler figure in the book world than that grocery store staple, the mass market paperback (MMP)? Other than that very shade of a book, "e-books," of course. You know the kind--the Lee Childs thriller, the latest Mary Higgins Clark mystery, those V. C. Andrews books you read way too young. Like the hobbits of Middle Earth, MMPs are of a much smaller stature than their peers, less showy, less refined. They're also cozy, unassuming, the salt of the earth. A collection of luxurious leatherbound tomes or pristine signed first editions is a worthy goal, but here are five reasons...

Special and heartfelt thanks to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's Southeast Chapter, whose generous support allowed me to attend Rare Book School this summer.

Rare book rager, "summer camp for book nerds," bookseller grad school, antiquarian Acapulco, call it what you will, Rare Book School is heaven for lovers of the word in all its varied forms. So much of my RBS experience truly was like a sleepover camp, full of skits, songs, and inside jokes, which share equal space in my notes with terms, dates, and figures. From Mark and John's Rare Book Schoolhouse Rock spoofs to dinner, drinks, and roaming about grounds with new...