Customer Reviews
Entertaining and informative - By: L. J. Roberts, 03 Dec 2008 
First Sentence: We came to book collecting because our birthdays fall eight days apart.
[Dust Jacket] Years ago, the Goldstones fled high-paying jobsin Manhattan to live & writein the Berkshires. Enough of an overachieving spark remained to ignite a contest when the search for inexpensive birthday gifts began. While Lawrence settled for a bath brush, Nancy tracked down a ten-dollar copy of "War & Peace," & the couple's love affair with book collecting was born.
For those who love the combination of books, history & collecting, this is a delight. Although there is a tone of being dismissive toward other people, & the phonetic spelling of speech from a New Zealand dealer was annoying, there was much that was good about this book. There were times I found myself laughing out loud. Being setin locations I know quite well also made it fun for me. The best part was the instructive, informative information about book collecting woven into the story & I did find myself taking notes.
Rare Find - By: Anna Cecil, 13 Nov 2007 
If you love buying, reading & then admiring the books on your shelves, you'll love this book. If you've never been to a second-hand book dealer's shop, you soon will. It's compulsive reading, then compulsive spending!
Gentle Madness, light, very light - By: taking a rest, 29 Oct 2002 
The book I refer toin the title is, "A Gentle Madness" by Nicholas A. Basbanes. If you are not yet prepared to spend the time the 638-page Basbanes book requires, this short story may be amusing.
The book is generally well written, & at times quite funny. Unfortunately there is an arrogance that pervades the book that is as misplaced as it is mean spirited. Perhaps the Authors felt the need to compensate for their neophyte status as book collectors, by making sport of those who truly know books.
Book collecting is complex, & can be extremely expensive for the newcomer. There are several useful pieces of information the Authors learn & share, but it is too often accompanied by their observations about the people & the bookstores they patronize. The learning curve on collecting is a long one, & the dealers who take their time to instruct the novice are more prevalent than you might imagine, & it's been my experience that they ask for nothingin return. Many booksellers just love books, the fact they part with them on occasion through a sale is often almost painful for them.
So do note from this book how not to deal with people, how not to take advantage of their time & their willingness to share it, & then exploit the experience for your own profit. A book collector would never have writtenin the manner they chose.
This is the result of research done for a book that was written over a cup of coffee, maybe two.
Delightful and entertaining read! - By: , 09 May 1999 This book was an adorable memoir!! Well written, humorous, & even dropped facts about antiquarian book collecting.
Delicious! - By: , 13 Apr 1999 The word "delightful" is much over-used but I can't think of a better word to describe "Used & Rare" by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone. Wait a minute, I can - "moving", "witty", "informative", "affectionate" & "a pleasure" are some other words I could use to describe this marvellous (there's another one!) book. It's comforting to discover that the eccentricities & foibles of book dealers, book collectors & assorted other bibliomaniacs aren't an exclusively Australian phenomenon, & the authors' dead-on phonetic rendering of a Trans-Tasman/New Zealand accent frequently brought a smile to this Aussie reader's face.
