A Day at the (Book) Fair
Posted November 11, 2025 by Will Romey
On Sunday, I drove to Boston to attend the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. This annual event first came up in my course “Rare Books and Special Collections Librarianship” (LIS449). This course has been unexpectedly influential on my first semester at Simmons, so I was excited to take some of what I’ve learned out into the wider rare books community.
After a relatively easy drive to Beantown, we parked right next to the Hynes convention center. After an espresso (adequate caffeination is a must for any literary event), we walked through the doors of the fair. We were immediately in the thick of it – rows of stalls, each containing dozens of books on display. I headed straight to Ben Kinmont’s stand, a bookseller from Caifornia who specializes in wine and gastronomy – two fields close to my heart. Although I’d studied his catalog in advance, I was thrilled to see his books in person. Highlights included a few books on viniculture from the early 1800s, some stunning marbled covers on handwritten books on Mexican cookery, and I was tickled to see some 1870s seed packets.
While I was checking in with the Bibliographic Society of America booth (an organization I’m planning on joining with the SLIS professional development fund) I ran into Meghan Constantinou, who teaches LIS 449 at Simmons Boston (aka SLIS East). I joined her and a few students from the class for a brief tour of the fair, getting into some interesting discussions with dealers. We also, of course, saw and discussed some more choice items: font design books from Garret Scott, an incunable that perhaps predates the Guttenberg Bible, and (perhaps my favorite book of the day) Ramond Chandler’s copy of Trader Vic’s “Bartender’s Guide“, with annotations on different recipes and special notes on the gimlet.
We meandered around the fair some more, having fascinating conversation with most booksellers. To their credit, despite being visibly exhausted after three days of intense book business, everyone was welcoming and excited to show off their wares to someone who was pretty clearly not about to buy a first-edition Descartes. We oggled incuabulum, ooo’d and aaa’d at a complete set of Apollo mission technical manuals, and gasped at the first edition Nature where Watson & Crick first published the double helix structure of DNA.
We made it out without dropping too much cash – I couldn’t say no to a copy of Claude Shannon’s 1948 dissertation on chess playing robots (I discussed the Shannon-Nyquist theorem a lot in my undergrad thesis), and my partner couldn’t resist her favorite Haran Ellison, in a signed and first edition copy. The connections we made (and the stack of catalogs) we picked up were the real benefit though. I’m already plotting how to approach next years antiquarian book fair!