Book specialities articles

• Bookcase games: a collector's empire
• Civilizations in the sand — rare and collectible books on the Middle East
• The magic of magic

Bookcase games: a collector's empire

When thinking of the term "board games," one might recall the games that were fashioned in one's youth, with the ancient games of Chess, Backgammon and Checkers being among the more elite of these gemstones of man's effort to pass the time in thought. Others may have become aware of the existence of games of strategy in the late 1950's or l960's, with developments such as "Risk" by Parker Brothers, or "American Heritage Series" games by Milton Bradley, which included such titles as "Battle-Cry," a game of the Civil War, or "Broadside" concerning the War of 1812. [Read more]

Civilizations in the sand — rare and collectible books on the Middle East

In almost every Arab capital these days there is an annual book fair. Except for Cairo, these book fairs are usually for new books. In Cairo there is a side fair for secondhand and out-of- print books which takes place at the same time as the main Cairo International Book Fair. There are secondhand book dealers in Beirut, Aleppo, Baghdad, Damascus, Amman and Cairo. Most of them trade locally, except a few in Cairo who are known internationally. I have met most of them and unfortunately all those I have met suffer from what I call the Suq (local bazaar) syndrome. The unknowledgeable among them think that every book which is a few years old must be worth a fortune. Even those who know the value of their books price them exorbitantly. [Read more]

The magic of magic

The word “Magic” is defined by Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus as “the art of producing mysterious effects by illusion and sleight of hand.” The word “magician” is defined as “one who practices tricks of illusion and sleight of hand.”

These are nice, concise definitions; but for the book dealer or collector there is much more to magic than any thesaurus or dictionary can describe. Magic is the most universal of the performing arts and one of the oldest. Magic is an art that is, and always has been, known and practiced in every country of the world throughout the centuries. [Read more]