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More from Books

The cut-throat business of the secondhand book trade

10 July 2021

9:00 AM

10 July 2021

9:00 AM

White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector Nicholas Royle

Salt, pp.176, 9.99

Guarded by Dragons: Encounters with Rare Books and Rare People Rick Gekoski

Constable, pp.256, 18.99

For almost as long as there have been books, there have been books about books — writers just love to go meta. As well as all that midrash, those Biblical commentaries, the SparkNotes, the interpretations, retellings and the endless online fan fic, there are also of course plenty of guides, manuals and handbooks designed to instruct the gentleman or gentlewoman in the gentle arts of book buying, book collecting and other vaguely book-related activities.

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