This time in 2006, I had been a book dealer for only two years. I had come to bookselling, not exactly by accident (I had been worked in bookstores off and on for the better part of ten years), but rather as a way to fill some time while I stayed at home with my then-four-year-old daughter. The business (such as it was) was very much a part-time venture. I had about 1000 books that I'd managed to scare up from library fundraisers, thrift stores, Craigslist, and garage and estate sales. I kept them in banker's boxes crammed into several closets around the house. I didn't really know any other booksellers and had little in way of a reference library. I sold only online. Most of my books were either modern firsts or university press titles, and every day or so one or two sold via ABE or Amazon. I dutifully packed up in salvaged boxes or homemade ad-hoc

packages. I made a little spending money, no more really. I knew about the rare book trade. I had attended a couple of book fairs. I had read the Goldstone's trilogy. I had a small handful of books that could be considered "valuable" (a jacketless first of THE GREAT GATSBY, an advance edition - the earliest circulated - of Delillo's UNDERWORLD), but I'd more or less blundered my way into these. I did manage to squirrel away several unusual books for what I hoped might someday be a catalogue. But I didn't know how to get from where I was to where, for example, Royal Books or Ken Lopez were (to pick two dealers whose catalogues I admired). In short, I was fumbling around, trying to figure out the bookselling business on my own. I thought I might want to make this a full-time job. But I had no idea how to do that. One year later that all had changed.…