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Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle - By Susan Netzorg Halas Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis participates in all the ABAA shows. Though bookselling with an open shop where buyers browse and money changes hands at retail is a dying occupation, it is still one of America’s most popular fantasies. Scratch any serious reader and just below the skin is a would-be book seller. Most of them have their some day shops clearly in mind. Owning a Bookstore – An Old Fantasy About those fantasy book stores: In the mind’s eye they all have coffee bars, long dust dappled moats of light streaming in through the high windows and comfortable chairs. There’s always a cat/or a dog/or a parrot in residence and an ever changing cast of characters, usually drawn from a pre-Seinfeld America. But those of us who are still in the book business and its 21^st century offshoots know it’s not really like that anymore. Being a bookseller is still a good life, but the model of what’s good about it has changed. Being a Book Seller in the 21^st Century I was fortunate my folks were in the book business. When I was growing up I didn’t have a choice. This was our business. I was in it. I moved to Maui in the 1970s and put out my first Hawaii-Pacific catalog in 1979. By the 1990s the trade (and me with it) had migrated to the internet, and Maui was no longer a sleepy little island backwater, it was an upscale resort destination. There is a lot to like about the bookseller life style in the 50^th state. As I write this the papayas are ripe on the tree, the gardenias are in bloom. The dog is waiting for the morning ride to the beach. Though the climate is murder on paper, I’ve never regretted choosing Maui as a home base. Still, when I look around, there are still others in the same trade whose lifestyles fill me with envy: No one documents the good life like Ian J. Kahn. In my own fantasy of book selling - Ian J. Kahn is at the top of the list. He is a former attorney, and a person who dabbled in books for many years before joining the trade. He is the owner of Lux Mentis (ABAA) in Maine. In that capacity he does all the ABAA shows, travels and exhibits widely and also attends book fairs and related events around the world. When it comes to social media no one documents the high points of the good life better than Ian.
Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle - By Susan Netzorg Halas Lux Mentis logo for Ian Kahn Bookseller (self identified recovering lawyer). I’m not a big Facebook fan; I have a page but rarely post; but I absolutely salivate over Ian’s Facebook pictures. It seems after a hard day of buying and selling high end books (and schlepping them to the hall and packing them all up and shipping them on down the road) Kahn and friends all adjourn to some fabulous café or restaurant for the post mortems and fellowship. As the food arrives, he snaps a few photos on his iPhone and posts them for the rest of us to enjoy. Trust me, they are all wonderful. The ones he sent from Maxim’s in Paris were incredible. You want fantasy? Imagine a soft golden light, superlative French cuisine and good company. Forget about the mangos and papayas just falling into your lap, these photos really evoked a style of life (and eating) I wish to be able to afford. According to Ian the pictures are really secondary to the experience of getting together with good friends and having a good meal. “Somehow the conversation just seems to flow.” There are some drawbacks to this life style, but not many. He admits to being a little overweight, “but it’s solid,” he says. He also mentioned his wife complains because he’s “in New York (SF, LA, London, Dublin, Paris) more than he is in Maine.”
Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle - By Susan Netzorg Halas Parkinson as a Tijuana surfer. The Pooh-Bah – Another View of Tijuana Another person with an enviable life style in the book trade is Lynn DeWeese Parkinson. The former Oregon attorney and Latin American specialist, is living a very different book seller fantasy in Tijuana, Mexico, where from all reports the weather is warm and life is good. Though some of you may have read about Tijuana as a place where gun fights and decapitations are a regular event, Lynn claims “if you’re not in the narco trade it’s a pretty good place to live.” Some of you already know him as the “Great Poohbah” of the long-running biblio list. His list is a by-subscription on line meeting place for the bookish for going on 15 years. It has about 1,000 subscribers who each pay $30 a year to belong. Members buy, sell, chat and commiserate daily. It’s one of the liveliest groups on the internet. As the owner he does not so much “moderate” it as keep the tone civil and the discussion mainly on-topic. That, in itself, is a reinvention of the form: it is fun, he’s the boss of it (as the name would imply in kind of a Gilbert and Sullivan way) and, it brings in a regular income stream. In the meantime he uses his exalted position to praises of his new home town and his new favorite sport - surfing. Mind you he is not a kid and surfing as a beginner in your 60s can be physically demanding. Never the less, at regular intervals we are all treated to his musings on the cultural resources of folks south of the border and the joys of riding waves. In addition, at least some of the excitement of his present life comes from running with the bulls, Pamplona style. Since moving to Mexico a few years back Lynn reports his business has become more focused on ephemera, posters, photos related Tijuana and bull fighting. He and his wife bought a house on the beach. He is part of a co-op, he still has a presence on-line, but most of his trade is retail.
Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle - By Susan Netzorg Halas Chris Volk & Shep Iiam exhibiting at recent book show. Bookfever.com – Two People & 60,000 Books. Still gold in those hills. And then there is the dealer lifestyle that is not so much a business as a love affair/addiction. I’m talking about Chris Volk and Shep Iiams at Book Fever in Ione, Ca. They are full time on-line booksellers who also do a variety of shows, and trek to various meetings to get things signed, with lots of stops to buy books along the way. I met them on the bib list, got to know them better when they visited Maui. A bit later I volunteered help with their exhibit at a large San Francisco book fair. Recently I’ve visited them several times on the Mainland and enjoyed spending a few days with their version of bookseller’s life. Let’s just say it’s very (very) strong on buy side. They are just two people looking after an inventory of 60,000 books in stock (of which more than 20,000 are on-line) and more arriving all the time. It’s a more than a full time occupation for two people. What’s fun about their version of the book biz is the stock is delicious. There’s always more than enough of everything, and a lot of it signed. The chances are also very good that if once you pick up a book, and momentarily put it down, you will never find it again. They specialize in modern firsts, women’s studies, Afro-American authors, signed copies, series books for children and science fiction, to name a few. They are both people with wide ranging taste and knowledge. Chris absolutely refused to supply AE Monthly with a photo of her at her desk. Instead AE shows you a picture of an elegant Bookfever.com display at a recent show where every dust jacket is turned face out and everything is in beautiful condition. But when I visited them recently and glanced from one room to the next I could just barely see the top of her head. She was entirely surrounded by “what I’m cataloging….” I grew up in a world of piles: piles on the stairs, by my mother’s desk, in the packing room, piles to be sorted and shelved. But those piles of yore are thin pale shadows compared to these major serious piles at Bookfever. These are books boxed and stacked deep with more books on top. These are the kind of piles where you will never see the bottom box, not while you live. And they take it with them when they travel. For example, when I helped out at the book fair in San Francisco, I met them at the show and we all rode back to their ten acre spread near Sacramento in a cross between an RV and a van. They sat in the front and I sat in the back packed in with the inventory. It felt exactly like a moving coffin. If any of those boxes shifted even an inch or the whole overloaded contraption flipped or rolled, which to a native Detroiter seemed like a high probability scenario, I was a dead woman. But no, we made it without incident, stopped for sushi, and got up in the morning to see the sun rise over the book ranch. They have a rural set up: it’s about 10 acres, off the main road, in the California gold rush country (Sutter’s Creek is just down the road). It’s all rolling and golden, and it also has lots of upkeep. The scenery is sweeping and the mountains are not far away. The whole area is called Amador County, which is also well known for its wine. Within a short drive of their place the vineyards are plentiful. After a hard day book ranching we drove around and sampled grapes of different vintages produced by small wineries, a lot of it was good. All of it was pleasant. Both of them are good cooks. This attribute is very gratifying, particularly if you are their guest. It isn’t just Ian Kahn who knows the benefits of good food with good friends and good talk. Of all of those AE spoke with Chris had perhaps the best advice. “You don’t go into bookselling for the money, and if you do you will be disappointed. You go into it because it is a life where you are always learning, everyday is new.”
Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle - By Susan Netzorg Halas Parkinson specializes in bullfighting ephemera. Contact Info Follow Ian J. Kahn Lux Mentis (ABAA) Maine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/iankahn His website is: www.luxmentis.com Contact Lynn Deweese Parkinson – The Great Poohbah, bull fighting specialist and resident of Tijuana, Mexico at: www.bibliophilegroup.com email lynn@bibliophilegroup.com Re the Biblio list: Newcomers ask for two week free trial. After that it’s $30 a year payable annually in March. It’s the best $30 you’ll ever spend Shep Iiams and Chris Volk, Bookfever.com Worth a visit if you’re in the area. www.bookfever.com email cvolk@bookfever.com Reach AE Monthly writer Susan Halas at: wailukusue@gmail.com

Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle

- By Susan Netzorg Halas

Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis participates in all the ABAA shows.

Though bookselling with an open shop where buyers browse and money changes hands at retail is a dying occupation, it is still one of America’s most popular fantasies.

Scratch any serious reader and just below the skin is a would-be book seller. Most of them have their some day shops clearly in mind.

Owning a Bookstore – An Old Fantasy

About those fantasy book stores: In the mind’s eye they all have coffee bars, long dust dappled moats of light streaming in through the high windows and comfortable chairs. There’s always a cat/or a dog/or a parrot in residence and an ever changing cast of characters, usually drawn from a pre-Seinfeld America.

But those of us who are still in the book business and its 21^st century offshoots know it’s not really like that anymore. Being a bookseller is still a good life, but the model of what’s good about it has changed.

Being a Book Seller in the 21^st Century

I was fortunate my folks were in the book business. When I was growing up I didn’t have a choice. This was our business. I was in it.

I moved to Maui in the 1970s and put out my first Hawaii-Pacific catalog in 1979. By the 1990s the trade (and me with it) had migrated to the internet, and Maui was no longer a sleepy little island backwater, it was an upscale resort destination.

There is a lot to like about the bookseller life style in the 50^th state. As I write this the papayas are ripe on the tree, the gardenias are in bloom. The dog is waiting for the morning ride to the beach. Though the climate is murder on paper, I’ve never regretted choosing Maui as a home base.

Still, when I look around, there are still others in the same trade whose lifestyles fill me with envy:

No one documents the good life like Ian J. Kahn.

In my own fantasy of book selling - Ian J. Kahn is at the top of the list. He is a former attorney, and a person who dabbled in books for many years before joining the trade. He is the owner of Lux Mentis (ABAA) in Maine.

In that capacity he does all the ABAA shows, travels and exhibits widely and also attends book fairs and related events around the world. When it comes to social media no one documents the high points of the good life better than Ian.

Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle

- By Susan Netzorg Halas

Lux Mentis logo for Ian Kahn Bookseller (self identified recovering lawyer).

I’m not a big Facebook fan; I have a page but rarely post; but I absolutely salivate over Ian’s Facebook pictures.

It seems after a hard day of buying and selling high end books (and schlepping them to the hall and packing them all up and shipping them on down the road) Kahn and friends all adjourn to some fabulous café or restaurant for the post mortems and fellowship.

As the food arrives, he snaps a few photos on his iPhone and posts them for the rest of us to enjoy.

Trust me, they are all wonderful. The ones he sent from Maxim’s in Paris were incredible. You want fantasy? Imagine a soft golden light, superlative French cuisine and good company. Forget about the mangos and papayas just falling into your lap, these photos really evoked a style of life (and eating) I wish to be able to afford.

According to Ian the pictures are really secondary to the experience of getting together with good friends and having a good meal. “Somehow the conversation just seems to flow.”

There are some drawbacks to this life style, but not many. He admits to being a little overweight, “but it’s solid,” he says. He also mentioned his wife complains because he’s “in New York (SF, LA, London, Dublin, Paris) more than he is in Maine.”

Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle

- By Susan Netzorg Halas

Parkinson as a Tijuana surfer.

The Pooh-Bah – Another View of Tijuana

Another person with an enviable life style in the book trade is Lynn DeWeese Parkinson.

The former Oregon attorney and Latin American specialist, is living a very different book seller fantasy in Tijuana, Mexico, where from all reports the weather is warm and life is good.

Though some of you may have read about Tijuana as a place where gun fights and decapitations are a regular event, Lynn claims “if you’re not in the narco trade it’s a pretty good place to live.”

Some of you already know him as the “Great Poohbah” of the long-running biblio list.

His list is a by-subscription on line meeting place for the bookish for going on 15 years. It has about 1,000 subscribers who each pay $30 a year to belong. Members buy, sell, chat and commiserate daily. It’s one of the liveliest groups on the internet. As the owner he does not so much “moderate” it as keep the tone civil and the discussion mainly on-topic.

That, in itself, is a reinvention of the form: it is fun, he’s the boss of it (as the name would imply in kind of a Gilbert and Sullivan way) and, it brings in a regular income stream.

In the meantime he uses his exalted position to praises of his new home town and his new favorite sport - surfing.

Mind you he is not a kid and surfing as a beginner in your 60s can be physically demanding. Never the less, at regular intervals we are all treated to his musings on the cultural resources of folks south of the border and the joys of riding waves. In addition, at least some of the excitement of his present life comes from running with the bulls, Pamplona style.

Since moving to Mexico a few years back Lynn reports his business has become more focused on ephemera, posters, photos related Tijuana and bull fighting. He and his wife bought a house on the beach. He is part of a co-op, he still has a presence on-line, but most of his trade is retail.

Living the Booksellers’ Lifestyle

- By Susan Netzorg Halas

Chris Volk & Shep Iiam exhibiting at recent book show.

Bookfever.com – Two People & 60,000 Books. Still gold in those hills.

And then there is the dealer lifestyle that is not so much a business as a love affair/addiction.

I’m talking about Chris Volk and Shep Iiams at Book Fever in Ione, Ca. They are full time on-line booksellers who also do a variety of shows, and trek to various meetings to get things signed, with lots of stops to buy books along the way.

I met them on the bib list, got to know them better when they visited Maui. A bit later I volunteered help with their exhibit at a large San Francisco book fair. Recently I’ve visited them several times on the Mainland and enjoyed spending a few days with their version of bookseller’s life.

Let’s just say it’s very (very) strong on buy side. They are just two people looking after an inventory of 60,000 books in stock (of which more than 20,000 are on-line) and more arriving all the time. It’s a more than a full time occupation for two people.

What’s fun about their version of the book biz is the stock is delicious. There’s always more than enough of everything, and a lot of it signed. The chances are also very good that if once you pick up a book, and momentarily put it down, you will never find it again.

They specialize in modern firsts, women’s studies, Afro-American authors, signed copies, series books for children and science fiction, to name a few. They are both people with wide ranging taste and knowledge.

Chris absolutely refused to supply AE Monthly with a photo of her at her desk. Instead AE shows you a picture of an elegant Bookfever.com display at a recent show where every dust jacket is turned face out and everything is in beautiful condition.

But when I visited them recently and glanced from one room to the next I could just barely see the top of her head. She was entirely surrounded by “what I’m cataloging….”

I grew up in a world of piles: piles on the stairs, by my mother’s desk, in the packing room, piles to be sorted and shelved. But those piles of yore are thin pale shadows compared to these major serious piles at Bookfever.

These are books boxed and stacked deep with more books on top. These are the kind of piles where you will never see the bottom box, not while you live.

And they take it with them when they travel.

For example, when I helped out at the book fair in San Francisco, I met them at the show and we all rode back to their ten acre spread near Sacramento in a cross between an RV and a van. They sat in the front and I sat in the back packed in with the inventory.

It felt exactly like a moving coffin. If any of those boxes shifted even an inch or the whole overloaded contraption flipped or rolled, which to a native Detroiter seemed like a high probability scenario, I was a dead woman.

But no, we made it without incident, stopped for sushi, and got up in the morning to see the sun rise over the book ranch.

They have a rural set up: it’s about 10 acres, off the main road, in the California gold rush country (Sutter’s Creek is just down the road).

It’s all rolling and golden, and it also has lots of upkeep. The scenery is sweeping and the mountains are not far away. The whole area is called Amador County, which is also well known for its wine.

Within a short drive of their place the vineyards are plentiful. After a hard day book ranching we drove around and sampled grapes of different vintages produced by small wineries, a lot of it was good. All of it was pleasant.

Both of them are good cooks. This attribute is very gratifying, particularly if you are their guest. It isn’t just Ian Kahn who knows the benefits of good food with good friends and good talk.

Of all of those AE spoke with Chris had perhaps the best advice.

“You don’t go into bookselling for the money, and if you do you will be disappointed. You go into it because it is a life where you are always learning, everyday is new.”