Old Books - Rare Friends
 Leona Rostenberg & Madeleine Stern
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1997 Doubleday NY USA
  ISBN: 038548514X


This book is available in new & used condition from $9.95

A whimsical memoir of two singular women - lifelong friends, literary sleuths & their passion. With humor & insight these two voices weave together a delightful saga of a life of hunting around the globe, buying & collecting old & rare books.

Given to me as a birthday present on a misty Northwest beach, the allure of two charmingly self-possessed denizens of one of the toughest cities in the world, drew me into its first pages even as the rest of my party sat around on logs, barbecuing fine local viands, feeding camp dogs & listening to the stories of an old man while the Pacific ocean rumbled onto a vast beach.

From their student years, surviving the Depression & WWII; to studying & getting published through the exciting times of starting a company; to their book-hunting jaunts to musty basements in faraway places; to their discovery of a literary icon's other side, this pair of feisty friends recount their quietly exciting life & times. Meanwhile, these erudite women write & publish vast & arcane ouvres.

Then they discover Louisa May Alcott's journals & are in hot pursuit of a legend who had written lurid tales to put bread on her table. For some reason we've woven the author's life into a patchwork of her later works starting with Little Women et al when in fact Alcott's life was rather different.

There is a timelessness to this book, to this duet of memories of lives intertwined with the past sixty years; to the recitatives between the arias when long-forgotten quartos come to hand, are reverently perused & eventually advocated for sale to like-minded, avid collectors.

This is a treasure of a book shedding light upon a time, an occupation & an esoteric avocation begetting a fearless lifestyle. Many times I would emerge from a chapter startled at where & when I found myself, so enchanting were their stories.

Other books by Leona Rostenberg & by Madeleine Stern are legion & include such diverse titles as: Freaks of Genius: Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott(with Shealy & Myerson); English Publishers in the Graphic Arts 1599-1700; Queen of Publishers' Row: Mrs. Frank Leslie; We the Women: Career Firsts of Nineteenth-Century America; Louisa May Alcott; Antiquarian Bookselling in the United States: A History; Women on the Move(4 volumes); Old & Rare: Forty Years in the Book Business; Quest Book - Guest Book: A Biblio-folly; Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad; The Feminist Alcott: Stories of a Woman's Power & many more!
(12/12/99)

Rebecca