Southern California Meetup around Pasadena Book Fair, October 6-7, 2012

So far I have not seen a gathering proposed for Southern California. Some of the more successful gatherings have taken place in conjunction with a bookish event, especially a book fair. A book fair will be held in Pasadena at the Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday, October 6-7, 2012.

Pasadena Book Fair, 2012

Kim and I will have a booth at this fair and we have some events in the evenings. However, if there is any interest in a gathering for people from San Diego to LA to Santa Barbara and beyond, I would encourage LT'ers to stop by and say "hello" during the fair.

This fair tends to supply a diverse range of scarce books but the prices are more within reach than the ABAA International Book Fairs which are held in cities like SF/Pasadena and NY/Boston on an alternating basis. This same group doing this fair also holds a "shadow" book fair in the opposite city from the ABAA, usually the week before. For example, if the ABAA is in San Francisco in Feb 2013 then the shadow fair would be in Pasadena (or another LA-area city) the weekend before. Details on that specific fair are still in flux. However, the October one is firmly planned.

I hope we shall see some of you there.

James Keeline

Wouldn't you know I'm going to be in northern CA the week surrounding Oct. 6-7. I would love to come to a meet-up, however and will keep on the lookout for another in So.Cal -- maybe in Feb?

The SF ABAA book fair is in February so there is usually a Bustamante book fair the weekend before or possibly afterward. Details for that one are still being arranged, Zi believe.

James

Sounds interesting. Depending on my schedule, I hope to show up.

Although most of the focus is on the October 6-7 Pasadena Antiquarian Book Fair (we will have booth #205 in the first aisle on the left), the dates have been selected for the Santa Monica Antiquarian Book Fair: February 9-10, 2013. The Bustamante Book Fair page gives some details.

As I described, the following weekend is the ABAA Book Fair in San Francisco on February 15-17, 2013.

Everyone in the book collecting community talks about the closure of many brick and morter bookstores. Good antiquarian book fairs are the next best thing, and in some ways better. A few dozen sellers, many of whom don't have shops, bring their best material to be offered in one place for your shopping convenience. They are there to discuss them and possibly give you guidance on ways to develop your collections. As with bookstores, you will find things you weren't searching for yet you may want to add to your collections.

Books at these fairs tend to fall in the class of the price of a good meal, a tank of gas, a car payment, or perhaps a house payment. At the ABAA fair there are books offered that are the value of an entire house. Hence, it is a good idea to patronize the fairs that attract good material but are not the absolute top of the food chain price-wise. The October and February Bustamante fairs are such an example.

If you're in Sacramento, tomorrow (Saturday September 15) is the Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair, a one-day event that many people have enjoyed, both sellers and buyers.

Visit a book fair, talk with the vendors, buy some books, make some friends of both the human and literary kind.

James

It was very nice meeting you on Saturday. I didn't purchase from your displays (I have first editions of the Oz books which belonged to my mother--her great-uncle knew Frank Baum), but I will be visiting your website. Thanks for the invitation. It was a fascinating way to visit so many old friends (the books, I mean) and see what's being collected these days.

We're glad you made it. Saturday attendance was unusually light. One possible reason was other competing bookish events. Other reasons are the economy and recent spike in gas prices, of course. Sunday was also light in attendance but much busier than Saturday. Traditionally there is a busy period on the first day of a fair and more browsing and final purchases on Sunday.

We squeezed in 6 bookcases and material to fill a 6x10 booth in our PT Cruiser. It was very full. As we loaded to go home, several were quite surprised at how much we fit in there, having seen our booth.

Oz books were well represented at the fair, as you know. They have been book fair mainstays for a couple decades that I have been showing at and attending fairs.

There were about 70 sellers at this fair with some great material, including books I had heard about but had never seen in person.

Next weekend is the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair on Oct 13-14, 2012.

The next fair in Southern California is in Santa Monica in February, followed the next weekend by the International ABAA/ILAB Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco.

With the closing of so many bookstores, book fairs are among the last places where you can see thousands of scarce and rare books, learn about them, and see them in person before making a purchase decision.

James

PT Cruisers are ridiculous in how much they can take - after watching my brother-in-law's car swallow my three-seater sofa and take a couple kitchen chairs on top (I was standing there holding the bungee cords to brace the part that would be sticking out...not so much), I am not amazed at one carrying _anything_.

We've loaded a lot in our PT before, including a trip to Sleuth Con in Phoenix last March. Here are a few photos of the loading and the booth. As I wrote above, there were five wood folding cases (3 shelves each) and one metal folding case (4 shelves) plus two display racks for picture books. The trophy case was rented from the book fair organizers. There were seven gray boxes plus six of the 11-gallon storage totes and some other books.

James
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