New York’s bibliophiles provide the contents of a documentary about a once-cherished trade caught in a bind by the digital age
The interest of this garrulous, convivial documentary creeps up on you by degrees: a study of secondhand and antiquarian booksellers in
New York City. This was once a clubbable – and very male – profession that hardly changed for centuries, run by a mole-tribe of eccentric, tweed-wearing guys who were irritated to be beckoned from their chaotic shelves of old books by someone cheeky enough to want to buy one. (I myself find something necrophiliac and stifling about used-book shops like this, but this film sold me on them, a bit.)
The business was upended by the internet, which brought unexpected calamities and benefits. The market for mid-range 20th-century first editions – ie a mint-condition copy of Ian Fleming’s From
Russia With Love – collapsed because their rarity value plummeted: you could just type in any title online and find it. (The film doesn’t mention it but there were once firms akin to private detective agencies advertising “out-of-print book searches”, who were allowed to charge you even if they didn’t find the book.)