FOOTNOTES from an antiquarian bookseller's life

Michael Selzer, who was educated in England at Bedales School and at Balliol College, Oxford, has spent much of his life in one corner or the other of the world of books. He is a prolific (even if not, as he says himself, a particularly distinguished) writer of books and articles, and over the past 25 years has been an antiquarian bookseller, bookbinder, and book auctioneer. He is also something of an Internet pioneer, having created Bibliofind, the first major online site for the sale of old, used and rare books, which is now owned by Amazon. The vignettes and ruminations in his latest book, Footnotes, provide unusual and often amusing glimpses into some of the experiences and challenges of antiquarian bookselling. Among them is the little-known story of an FBI investigation that led Alibris, one of Bibliofind's competitors, to plead guilty in Federal court to eleven counts of a criminal information. They also offer important insights into the difficulties the antiquarian trade now faces as modern culture, led by the academic world, intensifies its repudiation of the past.