The Book Shed

06/28/2019

Willie says it as he does

06/25/2019

Something for everyone: Local bookseller stocks diverse collection Posted by Tom Benton | Jun 21, 2019 | Feel Good News | 0 | Donna Howard owns the Eloquent Page. (TOM BENTON, Messenger Staff) ST. ALBANS CITY — Donna Howard loves books. It’s why she opened the Eloquent Page, St. Albans’ new, u...

07/20/2018

The VABA Summer Book Fair is coming up in three weeks. It's always a fun event with lots of great books from booksellers from New England and the Northeast as well as Vermont. A summer weekend in Vermont! What's not to love? And its free!

05/02/2018

Back again! As Green Up Day approaches I took a much longer break from the books. There is now almost 3.25 miles (on each side) of sparkling road frontage along Lake Rd. Since my efforts have been directed towards the environment the last few days I put up Rachel Carson's The Edge of the Sea. The last in her sea trilogy. It's the beach so right there it my favorite of the three.
The cook book section keeps growing. There's another Alice Waters, this time Pasta Pizza & Calzones. So now I really want to go back to RI, the beach and Italian food. My home state does both better than anywhere. More Creole cooking from New Orleans, several different gumbo recipes of course. Le Creole Bouche has enough recipes to fill any Creole mouth. Firefighters are famous for their culinary skills. The Firehouse Cookbook has recipes from firehouse kitchens around the US. And you probably won't have to rush out in the middle of the meal.
Enough with the cook books! (actually there are more coming.) This beautiful edition of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man is a great gift for Father's Day. Maybe Mother's Day too but when I had my store a lot of Joyce was sold for Dads. You can just buy it and read it yourself. Reading a fine edition is such a pleasure. Like drinking a fine wine. Hugh Kenner wrote the introduction. Elsewhere he has written "every theme in the entire life-work of James Joyce is stated on the first two pages of the Portrait".
Independent Vermont is one of those "sort of hard to find" books. A very readable history of the Green Mountain Boys' (Ethan Allen's crew) 18th century effort to carve Vermont out of eastern New York and western New Hampshire. Most of New Hampshire got given back but the state wouldn't exist if those damn "Yorkers" hadn't been finally beaten in court. Benson was part of the disputed territory. It's named for the Yorker lawyer who straightened out the charter. The book was published right around the time of Pearl Harbor and never got the notice it deserved, not in Vermont or elsewhere. Definitely a good gift book since its likely the recipient has never come across it.
Finally we have The Index of Middle English Verse. A remarkable effort of scholarship. Not for everyone but if that's your subject or field of interest you could probably need it. Or if you've finished the Canterbury Tales and wanted something else in ME you'll find lots of titles here.
As always all of these and much, much more can be found at www.thebookshed.com Not much in Middle English though.

We stock about 30,000 books in all areas, especially history, Vermontiana, philosophy & religion, literature and mysteries. Book searches are welcome.

04/25/2018

Today I added several more books, all from last weekend's book sale tour. Two cookbooks: the Home Book of Smoke Cooking Meat, Fish & Game and The Woodstock Cook Book, a 1938 production of the Woodstock NY Home Bureau Unit, (an educational cooperative adjunct to the Farm Bureau.) In keeping with the local culture this paperback is illustrated with an artist's palette carrying some food items and a knife, fork and spoon in place of the brush. Even 80 years ago it was an arty town. The Smoke book would make a nice companion to Cut It, Gut It, Cook It, one of yesterday's items. Moving away from cooking there is a very nice slipcased collection of essays by the New Hampshire poet Donald Hall, Here At Eagle Pond, brand new in shrink wrap. From the other side of the world is Dian Fossey's classic Gorillas In The Mist, a first edition in dust jacket. As always they are available at thebookshed.com as well as most major bookselling sites.

04/24/2018

I spent the afternoon adding books from the Williamstown sale we attended Saturday. 16 in all, 11 are cook books. Two versions of Fannie Farmer, including the first printing of the 1951 ninth edition. I hadn't seen this one before. The unusual cover is illustrated with a photo of kitchen implements. Later printings of the ninth revert to the standard all text design, at least the ones I've seen. Coming back to the list is the first American edition of the indispensible (for French cuisine) Larousse Gastronomique a nice copy in dust jacket. Also for Francophies in the kitchen, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making by James Peterson. Surely very useful. It's a long time to deer season but Gut It. Cut It. Cook It.: The Deer Hunter's Guide to Processing & Preparing Venison was put on the shelves. It includes a CD. A number of interesting restaurant cook books were purchased. Among those are one from New York's Once Upon A Tart, the original bakery and cafe which closed in 2012; Savannah Seasons from that city's highly praised Elizabeth's on 37th; The Black Dog Summer on the Vineyard Cookbook which will make you want to go to Martha's Vineyard in the unlikely event that you don't already; and finally two Moosewood first editions, one of which is in hardcover. Much better for standing up to the constant use these are often put to. Sing, Unburied, Sing the deservedly praised, award winning 2017 novel by Jessmyn Ward is going to my fiction section. In non-fiction we have Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, a reevaluation of Miss Austen's (ok Miss Jane Austen's for Janeites and pedants) novels set against the politics of her day. And finally an attractive 1900 printing of Leaves of Grass. I believe that is the last edition by the Great, Grey Poet's publisher David McKay. So a pretty good menu to feed body and mind.

04/22/2018

Lois and I had a fun weekend (at least I did) doing a book sale tour of New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We visited the library sales in East Greenbush, NY and Williamstown MA Thursday evening and Friday morning. Saturday was the venerable 5 College Book Sale in Lebanon NH The best material (as is often the case) was found at there.Fortunately we staked out our spot on Friday night well at the front of the longest line I ever seen at a book sale. The alumni of Mt. Holyoke, Simmons, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley have been running this operation since 1962. They know what they're doing both in assembling the donations and running the sale. Big thanks to them! It was good to see a lot of younger women volunteering along side the veterans of many years experience. That does promise well for the future. Lately I've been buying heavily in cook books as a result of strong sales in that area on-line. I'll be talking about several of those as they get added to my for sale inventory. There are some tasty ones. Julia and Fannie of course and lots more besides. They include a folio size life of Bonnie Prince Charlie by Andrew Lang. Any Stuart diehards out there? Watch this space!

04/22/2018

We are back at last! In October of 2017 the final books, fixtures and equipment were moved out of the Benson village store just short of 20 years at that location. 21 years ago this month The Book Shed commenced operations in an attached space at our house in Benson. We're now back there with an inventory comprised of books saved from the stock at the village store and new material added since then. Right now we are an on-line only book business but one with a "book shop sensibility." I plan on posting news and offers here. Purchases can be made directly or through thebookshed.com. Of course the inventory can also be found at ABE Books, Amazon and Biblio.com as well.

04/22/2018

Mike Daum, Bookseller; Garry Austin from Austin's Antiquarian Books in Wilmington VT; Joe Trenn from the Bookshed in Benson VT; and Peter Stern from Peter L. Stern & Co. from Boston MA.
I'm not sure what else I can say about this photo. As near as I can figure, Mike Daum hearing no evil, Garry Austin seeing no evil and Joe Trenn explaining to Peter Stern about how to do evil?