The Second Annual Holiday Book Fair
Tucked along a stretch of Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue most known for brunch spots and sports bars, the Old Stone House is a postage stamp of American colonial real estate. Devoted to Brooklyn’s role in the American Revolution and featuring information on the battle that bears the Borough’s name, the Old Stone House also played host last Saturday to the Second Brooklyn Holiday Bookfair, sponsored by Honey and Wax Booksellers. Shoppers, collectors and amateur bibliophiles crowded the narrow staircase and cozy exhibition spaces looking for their fix. Two vendors caught our eye as entrepreneurs to watch:
Terrace Books, Windsor Terrace
Featuring delectable items from Marcel Proust to Herman Melville, Terrace is a community store that offers used and rare books in their Prospect Park space.
Photos by Kristin Oakley
Terrace Books co-owner Stephanie Valdez, who along with Ezra Goldstein also owns and operates Park Slope’s Community Bookstore, let us know that we had missed some excitement. Park Slope denizen and currently Pinter-ing actor Patrick Stewart was among the eager morning browsers. His request: “I am a collector of twentieth-century drama.” That’s putting it mildly. Take note, Stewart fans: be looking for those first editions of Tennessee Williams.
Former academic and curatorial assistant Heather O’Donnell founded Honey & Wax in Brooklyn in 2011. Between the two catalogues and tantalizing items on display, Honey & Wax showed itself off as an emerging presence in the world of rare books: experienced and engaging, knowledgeable and fresh. As the co-organizer of the fair, O’Donnell also introduced Paul Auster before a standing-room-only crowd as someone who “embodies the Brooklyn imagination.” Auster read from his 1990 “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story” (inspiration for the 1995 indie Smoke, starring Harvey Keitel as Auggie) and closed with passages, taken from his 2012 memoir Winter Journal, about freezing Minnesota Christmases kept with his Norwegian in-laws.
Check out some of the other vendors from around the borough who were there with wares on display, including:
Freebird Books , Cobble Hill
Unnameable Books, Prospect Heights
Come on back to the blog tomorrow and treat yourselves to some book lover’s eye candy.