Destination: Books!

by Stephen J. Gertz

Nota Bene, Canadian bookman and Biblio File host Nigel Beale's blog, has developed into a new online service for bibliophiles, Literary Tourist.

The site's aim is to provide the traveling public - and those who love books - with useful information that will help them find and enjoy the best possible literary travel experiences, and, in so doing promote the well-being of used antiquarian bookstores and other literary destinations in North America and around the globe.

Literary Tourist's core database of  used/antiquarian bookstores comes from Book Hunter Press (BHP) a small publishing firm established in 1993 by David and Susan Siegel as a “service to our fellow bibliomaniacs.” BHP published seven North American regional Used Book Lover’s Guides with the goal of making them "the Frommers of the used books world.'

Nigel Beale points the way.

In late 2009  Literary Tourist acquired Book Hunter Press and spent the following year researching and developing this website. The existing database of some 8,000 used bookstores was refined and updated, and hundreds of literary landmarks, book fairs, writers’ festivals, rare book libraries and other literary destinations, events and activities were added, all with the goal of making travel more fun and exciting for book lovers.

The Nota Bene blog continues to be available at no cost through the new site, and for a modest $24.95 annual membership you can access Literary Tourist's entire online database of bookstores and literary destinations plus get exclusive content, event and sale updates, discounts, and more.

We like the new site,  all it has to offer, and wish Nigel Beale well.

Now that Nigel has staked his claim to become the Arthur Frommer of the book world, we eagerly await Rare Books On $5 A Day, a fictitious non-fiction novel about a parallel universe dreamed of but heretofore a figment of the imagination and fervid desire of a book collector of very modest means.

In occupied post-WWII Japan, Cary Grant and
John Garfield, naval officers and heavily armed
rare book dealers, meet with one Mitsuo Nitta
and make a deal to ship massive numbers of
rare American scientific journals in cargo
containers stenciled: Destination Tokyo!

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With the exception of the footer, all images courtesy of Nigel Beale, with our thanks.

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