The Canio's Books Blog

A personal library is something like a fingerprint, unique, idiosyncratic, revealing. One’s book collection developed over decades is like a mosaic of that life, the patient creation of a reader’s quest for truth, beauty, knowledge. When that reader dies, the books may wait untended, unread. Eventually, a lucky few may find their way into new homes, into eager hands, fitting into new libraries one by one. A young man wandered into the shop one afternoon in search of just the right book for his mother. Something in history, something about New York. He found a thick volume about life among the New York intelligentsia at the turn of the century, just what his mother was interested in. That book along with boxes of others had recently been acquired from the estate of a distinguished biographer and professor of history at Columbia University. The professor’s son had hoped his father’s books might find their way to other interested readers. Several days later a woman called the shop so appreciative of the book her son had brought her. A historian herself, she was eager to learn about that book’s former owner. She’d planned to insert a provenance card into the volume acknowledging the previous owner, thereby preserving a tradition, continuing a legacy. We couldn’t imagine a better home for such a book.