Join us as we speak to Nialle Sylvan from the Haunted Bookshop in Iowa City. We learn about the 1847 building that houses her used bookstore and numerous cats, life in a university town, and how this bookshop got its name.

Behind the Bookshelves

The Haunted Bookshop

We are joined by Jovanka Hammond who owns Hammonds Books & Antiques in St Louis, Missouri. Jovanka's journey into bookselling began in 1979 with Art Deco collectibles. Today, her store features books, jewelry, antiques and prints. We learn about Jovanka's dogs and a parrot with a taste for literature, the prohibition tunnel in the basement, and how customers sometimes get locked in the store.

Hammonds Books

We speak to bookseller Vic Zoschak, who runs Tavistock Books in Alameda, California, and has sold on AbeBooks for 25 years. Vic explains how he took up bookselling after many years of rescuing people. He discusses his interest in Charles Dickens and the most memorable Dickens object that he ever handled (and it wasn't a book). Join us for 20 minutes with a remarkable rare bookseller.

Tavistock Books

To continue our 25th anniversary celebrations, we speak to Jenny and Patrick Kalahar, who runs The Story Shop bookselling account on AbeBooks. Jenny and Patrick previously owned bookshops in Michigan and Ohio, while Jenny, an author, has published 14 books. Listen to their adventures in books from dressing up as Edgar Allan Poe to writing books about cats and answering bookish questions on a call-in radio show.

The Story Shop

We interview Dr Adam Stern about his just-published book, Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training, which describes his four-year residency in Harvard's Medical Program. Adam offers an insight into the psychiatry profession, from the unpredictable experience of treating patients for the first time to suffering from the imposter syndrome.

Committed by Adam Stern

To continue our 25th anniversary celebrations, we speak to Tom Lecky from Riverrun Books & Manuscripts in Ardsley, New York. Riverrun Books has sold with AbeBooks since 1996 with Tom buying the business in 2016. Previously, Tom was head of the printed books & manuscripts department at Christie’s in New York. He is also a book appraiser on PBS' Antiques Roadshow. As you can imagine, we have a lot to discuss.

Tom Lecky of Riverrun Books

To kick off our 25th anniversary celebrations, we interview bookseller Ray Boas from Walpole, New Hampshire, who has sold with AbeBooks since 1996 - our first year in business. We learn about Ray's adventures in bookselling from the early days of the internet to opening his own bookshop after retiring from the US Navy.

Ray Boas Bookseller

We are joined by Meg Dillon, a former BBC librarian, who explains about her new adventure in books. Meg runs the Small Library Company where she buys, sells and organizes books for small private collections. We also learn about Meg's first impressions of life in the rare bookselling business.

Small Library Company

We are pulling on our hiking boots and stepping out on to the Appalachian Trail with author Philip D’anieri. Philip has written a book called The Appalachian Trail: A Biography which looks at the people behind the conception and construction of the trail over a period of 150 years. We discuss Bill Bryson and his 1998 book about the trail, the first person to walk the length of the trail, the volunteers who created and still maintain the trail, and how hiking is a relatively modern pastime.

Appalachian Trail A Biography

Books written in blood, poisonous books, and edible books are just three of the topics covered in this episode. We are joined by Edward Brooke-Hitching, the author of The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and other Literary Curiosities from History, who also explains about a book made from slices of cheese and numerous other literary oddities. This is a podcast episode devoted to the weird, unusual and eccentric.

The Madman's Library

We speak to grammarian Bryan Garner about rare grammar books. One hundred books from Bryan’s collection of 1,900 books about grammar and 4,000 dictionaries are currently on display at the Grolier Club in New York. We learn how a teenage crush sparked Bryan’s love of grammar, how Noah Webster was instrumental in the spelling differences between British and American English, and how grammar continues to evolve.

Heyday of Grammar

Allie Alvis is our guest as we explore book history. Allie creates easy-to-understand bite-size YouTube videos to explain rare book terminology. We discuss her love of rare books, including how Led Zeppelin and Monty Python can help us understand book collecting terms.

Book Historia

We interview Julia Cooke, who has written a book called Come Fly the World: The Jet Age Story of the Women of Pan Am. Julia’s book looks at the young women who became stewardesses with Pan Am in the 1960s and 1970s. She tells the stories of several American women who were the right height, right weight and under 26 years of age to qualify for a job at Pan Am. From women’s rights to the Vietnam War, Julia explores the role played by these women as the world became a whole lot smaller.

Women of Pan Am

In this episode, we learn about rare Islamic books in the company of Roxana Kashani, who was recently hired to lead a new Islamic department at Shapero Rare Books in London. From the importance of the Quran to an early pioneer of fiction, we take a journey through the rare books of the Islamic world

Rare Islamic Books

They were the bestsellers of the Middle Ages. In this episode, we speak to Sandra Hindman, who runs Les Enluminures, a business dedicated to selling manuscripts and miniatures from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sandra explains what books of hours contained, who owned them, how they were decorated and the purpose they served. Step back in time with AbeBooks and this expert bookseller.

Books of Hours Explained

A podcast from AbeBooks. This series is dedicated to telling the stories behind books and the people who love them. We'll salute classic novels and famous authors, investigate long-forgotten books, and discuss publishing houses, libraries, bookshops, and anyone else with a bookish story to tell.

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Behind the Bookshelves

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