Pages & Proofs

These remarkable pictures come from a much-sought after self-published photography book called The Afronauts by Cristina de Middel. AbeBooks currently has a single copy for sale and, at even just over £1,000, it will probably sell very soon. (UPDATE – this copy has now sold, UPDATE 2 – there is now another copy online since […]

American author Augusten Burroughs arrives at a Chicago radio station to do a publicity interview for this latest book, This is How, but ends up becoming the owner of a cute puppy. His Facebook page reveals the story in detail. He also posed for this deeply disturbing photograph – obviously, the dog is scarred out of […]

William Gibson spoke at the New York public library last week and The Awl took the trouble of writing up much of what the author said. It’s interesting stuff from a writer who holds a very special position in the literary world. I was probably 12 or 13 years old, and I went virtually every […]

The BBC reports on how more than a thousand rare volumes have been recovered from an attic in a London house. It appears the books were stolen from Lambeth Palace’s book collection in the 1970s. “We were staggered,” says Declan Kelly, director of libraries and archives for the Church of England. “A couple of my […]

Our latest video salutes the design skills of Penguin and explains the colour scheme behind those vintage paperbacks that you see in any secondhand bookshop worth its salt. Orange, green,  cerise, dark blue, red, purple, yellow, grey and light blue are all explained.

Lily King works in the AbeBooks’ Customer Support department as our communications specialist. She has been an AbeBooks employee for seven years, and a voracious reader all her life. More a fan of reading than collecting, Lily loves the freedom that books offer, as well as the ability they give her to see parts of […]

F Scott Fitzgerald may have been one of the great novelists of the 20th century, but he was awful at paying the rent. I wouldn’t want him as my tenant – the parties, the booze, that crazy Zelda!

AbeBooks is all about the business of books, including book-related ephemera: in this case, art. Many authors have tried their hand at drawing or painting, and many artists and illustrators drew and painted long before they became successful or famous. To the lucky collector who finds one, nothing is more priceless or precious than a […]

Some people think it’s one of the weirdest books ever published. An art book unlike any other art book. A unique and disturbing surreal parody. Grotesque and beautiful. It’s very hard to describe. Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist Luigi Serafini is a window on a bizarre fantasy world complete with its own unique (unreadable) alphabet and […]

The announcement of Margaret Thatcher’s death at the age of 87 has sparked a flurry of sales. Yesterday, AbeBooks sold 21 books associated with the former prime minister priced £100 or more. Collectors interested in her writing will veer towards her signed books, which are plentiful at the moment. The former Conservative leader signed a […]