Rebecca Rego Barry

Book scouting sounds like one of those oddly intriguing careers, like a treasure hunter or a salvage diver. Mostly miss and every so often a massive hit but always the thrill of the chase.

Rare Books Uncovered is a collection of 52 stories from some of the more well known (relatively) scouts, librarians, and dealers in the business, each sharing their biggest, or most memorable 'score'. Rare first editions, ephemera and in one case, a flag.

This kind of stuff is my personal catnip and I ate it up. The cherry on top being a recommended reading section at the back, which will do nothing for the ever-growing size of my TBR.… (more)

4.5 of 5 stars.

A collection of short vignettes of people finding rare, mostly expensive books (and sometimes comics and sometime manuscripts) for cheap. An early printed copy of the Declaration for less than $2; a first edition of a Borges book for 50¢. Out of the way places, too. An estate sale, a stack of discarded newspapers, a book stall, a kids book shop, etc.

Basically, it's what every rare bookseller and every book buyer or antiquer dreams of doing: the steal of a deal find.

Pretty good, short enough to read a chapter in a sitting. There are fifty-two chapters. Most are interesting, though a few are a bit boring. There is an index and some book-buying terms defined in sidebars. There is an informative afterword and a short selected bibliography. One drawback, there are some nifty pictures, but not one for each chapter, which disappoints.… (more)