CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK JUNKIE: The Bibliographer’s Apprentice

by Lavie Tidhar Bibliographies are cool. That is, they’re cool for a given definition of cool… of a compulsive-obsessive book junkie sort of cool… long lists of titles, editions, cover artists, first edition ‘points’, original price, number of copies produced, the tiny differences between a second and a third paperback reprinting… who reads this stuff? Obviously, I do – my favourite bath-tub reading used to be book catalogues (incredibly soothing!) and I still like bibliographies a great deal. How I got into compiling one a few years back is a story for another time, but… what’s the appeal? A bibliographer is like a detective, and a bibliography is a mystery under investigation. No writer’s bibliography is straightforward. A publishing history is full of fascinating black holes, mysterious disappearances and reappearances of secret names and side-plots. Like the science fiction writers who made some extra money writing paperback pornography under pseudonyms. Or the ... (link)