Once upon a time, I fancied myself a book collector. Well, once upon a time, I fancied myself a voracious reader, and when I was young, I would go to second hand book shops and buy books – the ones they were selling for a dollar. I liked the fact that the books have already been used, and for some reason has been discarded. I used to wonder why – did they hate the book? Was it a gift they had no use for? A friend of mine used to say, “when you go to someone’s house, and they do not have any books, don’t trust them.’ It’s somethinG i will always associate with my time in New York City, because when I left, it was all about the Kindle for me. In the process of all my moving, I had to throw away so many books that putting all of my collection in a small device just seemed…practical.

I got off-course on that, but that was one of my thoughts while watching D W Young’s documentary ‘The Booksellers,’ about that group of book collectors always in the hunt for rare and antique books. I found myself in a lot of the talking heads because we share that rare gene – the collecting gene. You either have it or can’t understand it. These kinds of stores used to be everywhere in New York City, nowadays even the big book chains are being obliterated, so you have to wonder how they are surviving (Barely, it seems) The film also looks at how the book market has changed since the dawn of the internet – some for the worse, but there are silver linings: manuscripts and annotated editions have garnered more interest.

I found the film mostly fascinating, but is niche of all niches. I suspect if you don’t have the gene to appreciate it, you will be bored to tears.