Ralph Gardner: Einstein in the Adirondacks My wife proposed calling it a staycation. But that wasn’t strictly accurate because we traveled a couple of hours north – even longer if you include the wrong turn we took, or rather the right turn we didn’t take – and the trip included an overnight. We were on […]
COMMENTARY Meet Jack and Taff Fitterer, the wizards of book restoration Posted Friday, January 17, 2020 6:00 pm My father passed along his passion for books to me. I’m actually of the opinion that collecting is a gene that some possess, other don’t.” By Ralph Gardner Jr. GHENT, N.Y. Back in August, with fingers crossed and the maximum […]
For a very difficult dust jacket repair… I received a dust jacket restoration job for Steinback’s The Grapes of Wrath. It was in pieces and had a ton of scotch tape all over the joints and edges of the outside! Yup…it’s the good side. It had been on there long enough to really adhere to […]
Book repair, book restoration, book preservation, book conservation or do nothing at all. With a worn or damaged book in hand, the choices for treatment (or no treatment) may seem bewilderingly complex. Add to this the contradictory advice and opinions offered by different authorities, it may seem impossible to come up with a ‘best’ course […]
This is the second part of a dust jacket restoration (see part one here) where I am removing a torn, wrinkled heat set plastic covering the entire front and rear panels as well as most of the flaps. While the dust jacket looks like it has seen better days, fortunately, the actual damage, in addition […]
This week, I have a dust jacket restoration that has some interesting problems. The Outsiders and Others by H.P. Lovecraft is a rare book and an even rarer dust jacket. Perhaps only 1,000 copies were produced and, of course, there are far fewer remaining today. Interestingly, we had another copy of this same book and […]
